


She of the Djinn

by Atiaran



Series: Destiny [6]
Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-07
Updated: 2005-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atiaran/pseuds/Atiaran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Latest in my ongoing series of GabrielleCaesar fics. Picks up from Heroes. Character exploration of Najara as seen through Gabrielle's eyes. Jett returns, and Tara makes an appearance. AU. Not romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Standard disclaimer:**   None of the characters, places, etc. in this story are mine, but are instead the property of Universal Studios and Renaissance Pictures.  No copyright infringement is intended by their use in this story.

 

 **Author’s note:**   The latest in my ongoing series of AU Gabrielle and Caesar fics.  Picks up right where “Heroes” left off.  This one is sort of an in-depth exploration of Najara’s character as seen through the eyes of Gabrielle.  Tara makes an appearance in this one too.  Longer than the last one and harder to write (yes, even harder than the awful battle scene in “Heroes,”) this is the one that made me worry whether this series had jumped the shark.  However, my kind (too kind?) beta reader, Lady Kate, assures me that isn’t so, which at any rate is very nice of her to say. J   There will be a very short prequel interlude after this, then two more stories to finish the series, and then perhaps (no promises!) after the final story, another more extended prequel.  Enjoy.

 

 

 

 _“I practice the profession of penitence, to be able to end up as a judge….”_

—Camus

 

 

She was coming for him.

 

Caesar stood at the window of his palace, looking out across the city; from his vantage point on the Palatine hill, he could see almost all of Rome spread out beneath him, laid out like a map, the broad avenues, the apartment blocks of the _insulae_ , the Forum, the docks down by the Tiber.  The large, round structure of the Colosseum loomed in the background, standing black and sharp against the evening horizon.  Night was falling, and firelight flickered across his dark city. 

 

 _His_ city.  His own.

 

Not all of the firelight was lamplight.

 

She was coming for him.

 

Pompey had gone over to her side.  Caesar had shouted at the messenger who had brought him that news, had raged at him, demanding how he knew that, who had paid him to say that, a thousand other things he couldn’t remember now, he had been so shocked—so _stunned_ —to hear that.  It would have shamed him, to remember his loss of control, if he could still feel shame.  He couldn’t.  He didn’t think he would ever feel anything again.

 

The outer gates had been breached about an hour or so ago; he had heard them go, a thunderous crash that had echoed and reverberated back across the city, rolling back from the Seven Hills, the Senate house, the temples to Jupiter and Juno and Minerva on the Capitoline.  He hadn’t been there to see them; he’d been waiting in his palace.  Waiting for her.  He knew she’d come here eventually.

 

She was coming.  For him.

 

Her men were battling their way up the streets; he could watch the progress of the fighting from his vantage point on the Palatine hill.  Everywhere, the defenders of the city were falling back, pushed backward against the relentless onslaught of her men.  Flames marked their progress.  It wasn’t as great a burning as the one that would follow, but it was enough.  The troops he had were simply being mown down, as Xena’s men surged through the city streets; it seemed from where he watched, as if Xena’s force was invulnerable, as if there was no power on earth or of the gods that could have slowed them down.  Her army was titanic in size and strength; he could _see_ her troops, flowing through the streets like a wave of darkness, unstoppable in its sheer force and power.  In many areas of the city, there was no resistance, not any more; his men were flinging down their weapons and simply running for it, unwilling to contest strength with the superhuman spirit that animated her army.  Some of his men, he saw now, were even going over to her side, joining in with her army, turning and striking blows at the men who had been until moments ago their compatriots, looting and burning along with the rest of her forces.  _So much for Roman discipline,_ he thought.  The thought was distant, remote, like something half-overheard in a crowded room. 

 

At the head of her army, spearheading the advance into the city, she rode.

 

 _She._   Xena.

 

She looked different from the last time he had seen her, he thought idly, following her with his eyes as she drove her horse straight up the center avenue into the heart of his city.  She had been just another pirate then, stunned at his betrayal, naïve enough—as so many women were—to take his implied promises seriously.  Just another pirate, one foolish enough to think that she could get in the way of his destiny. He’d taught her better, or so he’d thought, watching with a calm satisfaction as she had been raised on her cross.  She should have known better, he’d thought, than to contest Rome…than to contest _him._   After all, who was _she?_   Nobody.  _He_ was going to rule the world.

 

 _Had_ been going to.  It certainly didn’t look that way now.  The thought carried no especial weight with him; it was another vague, distant sentiment, there and then gone before it could be fully acknowledged.

 

Now, she looked like a goddess.  She _fought_ like a goddess, riding her golden mare through the streets at incredible speed as if she were invulnerable, striking left and right with her sword as the spirit moved her, dealing death as if she were an incarnation of the gods.  Every blow she struck hit, and every hit she gave killed.  None of her opponents came close to hitting her—no one even tried to hit her; those men of his who were still fighting were throwing down their weapons and fleeing from her as she drew near.  They were falling back from her in waves; he could feel their terror even up from his vantage point, and as they fled she cut them down, her eyes blazing.  A trilling cry rose over the raging battle; somehow he knew it was hers, even though he had never heard it before.  It seemed to him, from where he watched, that she rode in darkness, at the center of a deep shadow that spread outward from her, spreading its tendrils to everything that came near her; he acknowledged distantly that it was probably a trick of his eyes, but that was how it seemed to him.  And at the heart of that shadow, _she_ was as bright as a blazing star, as perfect and untouchable and devastatingly beautiful as a jewel, a diamond, bright and brilliant and sharp enough to cut.  _Of course_ she was a goddess.  _Of course_ his men were fleeing.  _Of course_ she was invulnerable.  It all seemed to make sense, as he watched her gallop full-speed up the avenue without the slightest hint of concern for any danger.  How could she be wounded?  How could she be injured?  It was impossible.  Anyone opposing her was doomed—they wouldn’t even have a chance.  That was simple enough to see, and she proved it again and again, striking and striking with her sword until the whole blade was red with blood.  She was coming.  She was coming with the inexorable weight of an avalanche, a landslide, a tidal wave. She was coming like an avatar of divine retribution incarnate.  There was no power on earth or of the gods that could stop her, stay her or turn her aside.  And she was coming straight for him. 

 

Closer now.  Closer.

 

Caesar turned away.

 

With slow, measured steps, he left the window and crossed to his dressing table.  He moved as if he were underwater; everything seemed very distant to him somehow, not quite real.  He felt as if he had a high fever, or were slightly drunk; reality seemed to have taken on a crazy skew.  He looked at himself in the mirror there, running his hands over his clothing, setting it to rights; he adjusted the blue cloak he wore slightly, touching the clasp, refastening it.  He took the golden circlet of laurel leaves from the table top and slowly raised it to his head, pausing a moment to admire the effect of the gold, bright against his coal-black hair.  His eyes fell on his sword, and he wondered vaguely if he should take it, then dismissed it.  It wouldn’t do any good.  Nothing would do any good.  Not now.

 

He turned, and left the room.

 

Statues and vases lay smashed in the hall outside, tables and stands clumsily tipped over by panicky servants fleeing in desperate fear before the onslaught of Xena’s army.  His sandals gritted on shards of pottery and marble.  He moved slowly, with no haste; there was no point. Servants rushed by him as he walked, without so much as a glance in his direction; many of them were carrying valuables that did not, strictly speaking, belong to them.  He saw expensive jewelry in the arms of one young female who was almost running; another older, male servant was carrying two golden candlesticks and a set of silver plate that had clearly been taken from the dining hall.  He let them pass without speaking, even stepping to the side to get out of their way as they ran down the halls.  Why bother to try and stop them?  It wouldn’t work, and it didn’t matter anymore.

 

The audience hall was empty when he got there, but the torches were lit and burning in their sockets; Caesar paused to note this distantly, before dismissing it.  The fighting was very close now; he could hear the clash of arms, as well as shouting and screaming so close by that he could even make out individual words.  The doors leading to the outside were barred.  Caesar saw this, and dismissed it too.  Slowly, each step precise, he turned and stepped up on the dais.  He pushed back his cloak, and took his seat upon the throne.

 

Nothing left to do but wait.

 

The thudding began almost as soon as he had taken his seat, the doors to the chamber shivering under heavy blows.  _Battering ram,_ he thought to himself; again, the thought was distant, vague, there and then gone almost before it was acknowledged.  Time seemed to have slowed down, somehow; it was as if he were surrounded by a glass ball of utter calm.  He had time to count each individual strike against the doors, to see the grains of dust sifting down from the plaster above, each utterly distinct, utterly perfect, glistening with its own light; to observe in minute detail the way the doors shook against their frame, the timbers bending and flexing under the force being directed at them.  Everything seemed unreal.  His life—his destiny—had come down to this moment; the scope of his ambition, his plans, his hopes and dreams, had narrowed down to a space no wider than the thickness of the wooden doors he faced, the final barrier between him and Xena’s terrible, unstoppable wrath.  He could feel each heartbeat, hear the roaring of blood in his ears.  His heart was pounding in his chest.  He didn’t know why.  He felt no emotion, nothing; not fear, not terror, not fury; nothing.  He was simply numb. 

 

In those last few moments of his empire—the last few breaths, the last few heartbeats while the door still held—Caesar sat, motionless on his throne in the audience chamber of his palace, and waited for his destiny to fall on him.

 

It fell.

 

The doors shattered inward in an explosion of splinters, and Xena’s golden mare leapt straight through the shattered gap. Xena rode her, blazing with battle-rage, giving her trilling warcry. The fear burst in on Caesar at the same time—an awful, debilitating terror of a sort he had never felt before in his entire life, that crushed his chest and weakened all his limbs. Xena looked not human, but more than human, a divine goddess of vengeance come for him; her aura spilled out from her to fill the room to the walls—and Caesar felt himself recoil from her, goaded by that horrible, awful _fear._

 

The mare plunged, sliding on the slick surface.  Xena met his eyes, and a terrifying grin spread across her face.  He had never seen an expression of such pure evil on human features before.  With a drilling, triumphant scream _—“Eeeeeeee-yaaa!”_ —she snatched a whip from her saddle horn and swung it.  A line of fire curled around his throat.  The pain shocked him.  He heard himself cry out and reached up to claw at the choking line of braided leather at his neck.  Her horse’s hooves were thundering on the marble floor.  More and more of her men were pouring into the room through the devastated doors on either side of her.  The whip tightened on his neck and the world jarred around him.  A sharp splitting pain exploded in his head as he was yanked off the throne and hurled roughly to the ground, and he cried out again as the marble floor struck him.  The whip was choking him, choking; his sight was beginning to gray out before his eyes and he thrashed wildly, clawing for air.  Then Xena’s foot slammed into his chest as she leapt off her horse, pinning him to the floor.  She yanked the whip tighter still around his neck.  _It’s her.  That’s Xena._   There was no doubt about it as she grinned down at him, her eyes frighteningly veiled in that pale, alabaster face.  That aura was pouring out around her, dimming his sight still further.

 

 _“Honey,”_ she cried in hellish exultation, _“I’m home!”_

 

Caesar could not make a response.  His chest was burning for air.  Xena leaned down and he felt her snatch the laurel leaf circlet off his head; she turned, and he was barely able to make out that Pompey was nearby.  How his rival had gotten there, Caesar didn’t know.  _That bastard—that traitor—how did he—_

 

“Here, I believe this is yours,” she said, grinning.  Pompey strolled up easily to take it, moving with an incredible air of confidence, as if he was taking no more than he deserved; as his fingers closed around the circlet, he looked down on Caesar and gave a slight, supremely self-possessed smile.  If Caesar had been able to move, he’d have tried to kill him for that smile alone. 

 

“Thanks.  You know, I always did think this would look better on me,” Pompey said, not losing that grin.  He raised it to his own head, and looked at Xena, the gold lost against his blonde hair.  “What do you think?” he asked her.

 

“ _Perfect_ ,” Xena said with relish; she was not looking at Pompey, but still looking down at him with that absolutely frightening smile.  “I’ve been waiting _years_ to see that.”  She jerked the whip still tighter around his neck, grinding her heel into his chest. Black flowers bloomed across his vision and he coughed, throwing his head back desperately.  “And as for you….don’t worry.  I’ve got plans for you too.... _Slave,”_ she hissed at him through her teeth.  Her burning, terrifying eyes were the last thing he saw as the darkness swallowed him.

 

[*]

 

Caesar jerked awake, to the sight of cold, gray stone walls.

 

He didn’t remember where or when he was at first, and tried to rise without thinking, but the pain in his shattered legs pulled him back to the present, and as he raised one hand, he saw the livid scarring circling his wrist.  It stood out against his skin in the dim and slanting light that made it through the shutters.  He had dreamed for a brief instant that he was whole again, that his city still stood and Xena still lived; he had dreamed that the events of the last five years hadn’t yet happened—and perhaps could still be averted—but that wasn’t the case.  He woke from the dream to the room he and that stupid blonde bard— _Gabrielle,_ he knew her name now, it was Gabrielle—had shared, with the memory of his failure in battle that morning close upon him.  No, he wasn’t whole again; he had nothing more than his broken body and the knowledge that Rome had fallen, Xena was gone, and now it seemed his skills as a commander were gone too.

 

 _I should have stayed asleep,_ he thought.

 

Tired.  He was so tired.  He’d been up all night the night before, trying to find some way to make something out of nothing, to defeat an army with a rabble of peasantry.  The knowledge that Xena could have done so hadn’t helped; as if he _needed_ another reminder that he was not Xena and could never be Xena.  The memory of his outburst in the tavern made him sick with rage and shame.  When the Crusader had arrived on scene—sweeping into the village as effortlessly as if she owned it, riding and striking, like Xena, as if she were invulnerable, her men moving with the same unstoppable force that had animated Xena’s troops—he had simply gotten up from his chair and retreated to his room.  In all the commotion and excitement, he was fairly certain no one had even seen him go.  Once there, he had lain down and simply gone to sleep.  Let the Chosen of the _Djinn_ deal with the battle.  She could, no doubt, do so better than he.

 

He rolled over in the narrow bed—carefully, so as not to cause any more protest from his legs—so that he faced the wall.  He closed his eyes, trying to find the dream again—maybe a _better_ dream this time, one where Xena didn’t chain him and break his legs and burn his city to the ground—but the thudding against the doorframe snatched him back from sleep.  It was unpleasantly like the pounding of his dream, and of the men of Zagreas at the tavern door earlier.  He raised himself on his arms and prepared to shout at whoever it was to leave him alone, when the door opened and Jett came through it.

 

 _That damn assassin._ Caesar grimaced at the memory of the last time they had met, and eyed him warily.

 

“What do you want?” he said harshly before Jett could speak.

 

Jett stepped back against the wall and looked at him.  “How are you doing?  Are you awake?”

 

Caesar raised one hand to his forehead.  “I am _now_ , thanks to _you_.  What do you want?”

 

“The Crusader Najara sent me to look after you and Gabrielle.  She says to tell you that if you are wounded, her healers will treat you—they’ve set up tents on the edge of the village and are treating the injured of the villagers and of Zagreas’s men, but if you—“

 

“I don’t need healing.  Leave me alone.”

 

“Najara _also_ says,” Jett continued on as if he hadn’t noticed Caesar’s interruption, “that she would like to meet with you later today, so that she can hear from you the exact details of what happened at Xena’s camp—her _djinn_ have told her that the Daughter of War is dead, but she would like to hear from eyewitnesses.”

 

Caesar felt his mouth tighten at the request.  “I’m not telling her anything.”  His head was splitting.  He rubbed his closed eyes and wondered briefly to himself at his own twisted loyalty toward the woman who had taken everything from him and made him a slave.

 

The assassin eyed him carefully.  “Xena’s dead, you know,” he said after a moment.  “Nothing you say can hurt her anymore.”

 

He considered that, frowning.  The remnants of fatigue were still in him; it was hard to think clearly.  “What’s that stupid bard say?” he asked after a moment.

 

Jett didn’t like that; Caesar could tell by the expression that crossed the other man’s face.  “She’s not stupid.  And she has a name, you know,” he said, looking at him in disapproval.  “It’s Gabrielle.”

 

“I don’t care.”

 

“You should.  She’s saved your life _twice_ —once in the tunnels from that guard, and once, from what I’ve heard, today in this very tavern—“

 

 _Three times,_ Caesar thought but did not say, remembering the day he had gotten the chains off and reality had come crashing down on him.

 

 Jett was continuing, his expression hard.  “She’s _killed_ for you, because you were unable and unwilling to defend yourself.  If _I_ were her, with her reverence for life, _I_ wouldn’t have compromised my principles on account of you.  Frankly, you’re not worth it, particularly when you’re not willing to help yourself.  I would have left you to die.”

 

“She should have,” Caesar muttered, looking away.  _She had, hadn’t she?_   She had killed for him—again.  _Why did she do that?_   Especially after her refusal to do so earlier—she hadn’t even picked up a _weapon_ until he’d ordered her to, and had flat-out told him she would not use it to kill again.  He knew she didn’t like him, any more than he liked her, so why….

 

Jett wasn’t done.  “The very least you owe her is a little respect, on account of all she’s done for you,” he was lecturing sternly.  “Gabrielle has helped you far more than you have had any right to expect from her, and from what I’ve seen, you’ve given her nothing but grief in return.  An apology would be a good start—“

 

“Whatever.”  Caesar cut him off with a wave of the hand.  Slowly, he edged his shattered legs over the side of the bed.  “Where is that stupid blonde, anyway?”

 

Jett glared at him. “ _Gabrielle.”_

 

“Fine, _Gabrielle_ , then.  Where is she?”

 

The assassin stared at him for a long time, clearly struggling with himself.  Caesar watched; it was good, just once, to see someone else in that position.  At last, he brought out, grudgingly, “She’s at the tent of the healers, getting treatment for her head wound.”

 

[*]

 

Najara had set up the healers’ tents for her army right outside the village, just beyond the defensive ring that Caesar had had them build the night before.  After Jett left her at the main tent, it seemed to Gabrielle like she was waiting quite a while before the healers got around to seeing her; she could see why, even in her disoriented state.  The carnage from the battle was awful.  The healers had their hands full treating wounded villagers, villagers injured much more severely than she was.  Gabrielle got a chance to see up-close while she was waiting, the graphic effects of what happened when peasants armed with pitchforks went up against combat-trained men with swords and armor.  Somehow, it didn’t seem real to her.  While the world was no longer graying out around her, she still felt strange, disoriented, as if everything had tipped sideways; it was difficult for her to focus, and concentration was hard. 

 

Seeing that she was walking and could respond to simple directions, the healer to whom Jett brought her directed her to get out of the way and stand to the side while he treated the more desperate cases.  Gabrielle watched horribly mangled villagers get passed over, with nothing done for them, while villagers that were less-seriously hurt but bleeding a great deal were instantly treated.  At first it shocked her—even appalled her—but then she remembered her own stint as a hospice volunteer.  It was the first rule of triage—those who could not be saved, or who could be saved at the cost of many hours, had to be passed over in favor of those who would die immediately without minimal care.  _“You can’t save everyone,”_ the gruff old healer in charge of her hospice had told them.  _“You have to try to save as many as you can.  If you spend five hours working on a patient that you might not be able to save anyway, and in doing so pass up five patients that could be saved with an hour of work each, you’ve essentially saved one life at the cost of four.  I’m not saying it’s not hard,”_ he’d said, not without sympathy.  _“Everything in this world is hard.  But you’ve gotta do the greatest good for the greatest number.  The good of the many must needs outweigh the good of the few.”_   Gabrielle had thought it sounded inhuman when she’d first heard it, but as she worked there, she had come to experience first-hand the cold, remorseless, vitally necessary logic behind such a rule.  She’d never come to like it, but she’d come to see that it had to be that way.

 

Eventually, once the flood of the critically wounded had more or less tapered off, the drapes to a closed-off section of the tent opened and a young woman stepped out.  Seeing Gabrielle, the woman beckoned to her, and Gabrielle rose and followed her in.  Once inside, the woman let the drapes fall, and indicated a stool for her to sit on.  Gabrielle’s legs were weak, and she did so, looking around.  A chest stood against one wall of the tent; it was open, and medical supplies—bandages, sponges, scalpels—were spilling out.  Against another wall was a light portable desk, with writing supplies on it, and a camp chair in front of it.  The light filtered in through a flap of the tent that was open, with a mesh screen over it to keep out insects and flies.

 

The woman turned to Gabrielle, and Gabrielle looked her over, aware that she was being looked over in turn. The woman was young—about Gabrielle’s age—with black hair; it was long, and hung loose for about a forearm’s length, and was then twisted into braids below. Her bangs were spiky and stood up from her head, looking sort of like a hedgehog’s quills. They accentuated her eyes—as large and dark as those of Gabrielle’s companion, but where Caesar’s eyes were cold and distant, this girl’s were warm and open, sparkling with life and emotion. The other woman was looking her over as well, and the two of them smiled at each other with shy liking.

 

“My name is Tara,” the girl said at last, trying to be professional, “and I’m an apprentice healer.  You’re walking and coherent, but you’ve got a head wound, and the master healer always says those can be worse than they look at first.  So I’ll look you over and determine whether you need to be seen by one of the full healers.”

 

“I know,” Gabrielle managed.  “I volunteered at a hospice a while ago.  I know the drill.”

 

“Okay. Now, I can see there’s a nice swelling there—“ She laid her fingers lightly on Gabrielle’s scalp, and Gabrielle couldn’t repress a wince. Tara clucked in sympathy. “That clearly hurts, but you don’t appear to be bleeding, so you don’t need stitches….” The young healer bit her lip in thought, then looked up. “Okay. So I’m going to start by asking you a few questions,” Tara said kindly, “and I want you just to try and answer them as best you can. If you don’t understand the question, or if you need me to repeat, just say so, all right?” She picked up a quill pen. “Okay?”

 

“Ask away,” Gabrielle responded; she remembered that this had been part of her training as a volunteer at the hospice too.

 

“All right.  Now, what’s your name?”

 

“Gabrielle.”

 

Tara nodded.  “Do you know where you are?”

 

“I’m in the tent of the healers in Najara’s encampment, outside the village of Laurel.”

 

“And do you know your parents’ names?”

 

“Hecuba’s my mother, Heroditus is my father,” Gabrielle answered readily.

 

“And where you were born?”

 

“Potedaia, my home village.”

 

“Do you know how old you are?”

 

“Nineteen.”

 

“So am I,” Tara said, with a shy smile.  Gabrielle smiled back.  “Okay, good,” Tara continued.  She marked something down, muttering, “No evidence of serious disorientation….Okay,” she said.  She turned Gabrielle’s head to the light from the window and peered closely into her face; Gabrielle knew she was checking to see if her pupils were equal size and reacting to light.  Tara nodded slightly at what she saw, and marked something else down.  “Now, is your vision blurred?”

 

“No.”

 

“Bright lights?  Flashing?  Double vision?  Any problems focusing?”  She nodded at Gabrielle’s denial, and held up her hand.  “Follow my hand with your eyes, please.”  She had Gabrielle track her fingers for a few moments.  “Okay, good.  Now can you touch your nose alternately with your first fingers?” 

 

Gabrielle did so, feeling silly, and couldn’t repress a slight giggle.  Tara giggled too.  “I know it looks kind of funny,” she said apologetically.

 

“No, I saw people do this before when I volunteered at the hospice,” Gabrielle reassured her warmly.

 

“Was that in your home village?”

 

“Next village over.  Potedaia’s too small to have a hospice.”

 

“Yeah.  My home village was like that too—just a wide spot in the road.”  Tara gave that shy grin again, then marked something else off.  “Well, Gabrielle,” she said, “it looks like you’re okay—no vision abnormalities, no motor coordination problems, you’re not severely disoriented—but I’d like you to stay here for a bit if that’s all right so I can make sure you’re not bleeding inside your skull.  Is that all right?”  She smiled.  “You can watch as I make out inventory lists.”

 

“Sounds like fun,” Gabrielle replied wryly, a bit amused at this young apprentice healer’s efforts to sound professional.  “Sure, I’ll stay for a bit.  Actually….”  She looked over at the chest.  “Is there anything I can do to help?  That chest of supplies over there looks kind of disorganized….”

 

“You know what you could do to help?” Tara said, struck by a thought.  “You could roll some of those bandages over there—I meant to get around to it earlier, but….”  She sighed.  “I just didn’t have time.”

 

Gabrielle nodded soberly.  “Yeah.  I know.  We had a few of those days too.”  She hopped down from the stool, crossed to the chest, and started rolling some of the long strips of cloth.  It made her feel better to have something to do; it kept her memories of the battle—and she could feel them, waiting to rush in on her in an unguarded moment—at bay.  At least this way she was doing something useful, something that could help someone.

 

They worked in companionable silence for a while.  Occasionally the dark-haired healer would look up and ask Gabrielle, “How many bowls are in that chest?”  or  “Are there any probes over there?” and Gabrielle would answer.  Other than that, there was no noise but the sound of Tara’s quill pen skritching on parchment.  It was oddly peaceful and soothing to Gabrielle after the incredible stress of the last two days, and she felt herself slowly relaxing in the quiet interior of the tent.  Strange to think, she mused to herself, that she should feel such quiet in the middle of an army….As she rolled, her thoughts turned again to that utterly arresting woman who had swept into town and saved their lives.

 

“Will Najara come by?” she asked.

 

Tara turned to look over her shoulder.  “Probably.  After a battle, if she can, she always tries to stop by the tents of the wounded.  She’s a really skilled healer.  I’ve seen her bring people back that even our master healer had given up for dead,” she said reverently.

 

“She really sounds like something,” Gabrielle said thoughtfully.

 

“Oh, she _is,_ ” Tara agreed.  “She says it’s not her that knows how to heal—she says it’s the _djinn_ that tell her what to do.  Whatever it is, she’s good.  She’s really good.”

 

“How soon do you think she’ll stop by?” Gabrielle asked.

 

The young healer shrugged.  “Don’t know.  She’s probably still talking to Zagreas’s men right now, telling them about the Light and everything.  She might come by after that.”

 

 _Telling them about the Light…._   Gabrielle looked down, unseeing, at the strip of cloth she held in her hands.  She was remembering the story Jett had told about how he had come to follow Najara, the offer that the Crusader had made them.

 

“Doesn’t it bother you that she executes them if they don’t join in three days?” she found herself saying.  “It would bother me.  I mean, from what I hear, Najara talks like her Light is goodness and peace, but she kills people just for not following it?  If I were you, I wouldn’t like that one bit.”  Even as she spoke, she was thinking she probably shouldn’t be saying this to Tara.  Maybe it was the head wound.

 

The young healer’s face clouded; _I seem to have struck a nerve,_ Gabrielle thought to herself.  Tara looked down, away from Gabrielle, and dropped her gaze to the writing desk before her without saying anything.  Seeing her reaction, Gabrielle frowned.

 

 _“Does_ it bother you?” she asked quietly.

 

Tara kept her gaze on the desk.  When she spoke, her voice was so low that Gabrielle could barely hear her.  “I don’t think they deserve it,” she muttered to the writing desk.

 

“Yeah.  That’s what I mean,” Gabrielle said, frowning.  “I mean, just because they don’t believe in her Light, is that a reason to _kill_ them?  I mean—“

 

“ _No._ ”  Tara cut her off.  Gabrielle looked over at her, startled.  Tara’s wide black eyes were overly bright, and her lips were trembling.  “No.  You don’t understand what I mean,” she said.  Her voice was quivering.  “Najara gives them a _chance._   I don’t think they deserve it.”

 

“Tara…” Gabrielle breathed. 

 

“I don’t think they deserve it,” the healer repeated.  Her dark eyes were large and liquid.  Her words were rushing out, tumbling over one another, faster and faster.  “Half of them just go right back to killing and burning and slaving afterward, just as soon as they think that Najara’s far enough away that she won’t find out about it, and then she has to go back and execute them again _anyway_.  If she’d killed them in the first place they wouldn’t ever get the chance to hurt more people.  Najara says everybody deserves to be given a chance, that nobody can walk so long in darkness that they cannot come again to the Light.  I don’t agree,” Tara said, her voice shaking.  “I don’t think that animals who hurt people like they do should get a chance.  That’s what I think.  I don’t think they deserve it.”

 

She suddenly stopped, overcome with emotion, and drew a deep, shuddering breath.  “I’m sorry,” she said wanly, after an effort to regain control.  “I didn’t mean to get so upset like that, it’s just….I mean….I can see what she’s trying to do, I understand it up here—“  she touched her head “—but not in my heart.  I—“  She gave a weak smile.  “Najara says I still have problems with forgiveness,” she offered lamely.

 

“What happened to you?” Gabrielle asked quietly, then wished she hadn’t said anything as Tara closed her eyes and raised one hand to her forehead.

 

“I don’t….I don’t think I want to talk about that right now, if that’s all right with you,” the young healer said in a high, unhappy voice.

 

“I’m sorry,” Gabrielle offered.  Tara didn’t respond.  Gabrielle rose and crossed the room, drawn by the healer’s pain.  “Tara, I’m sorry,” she repeated, laying a hand on her shoulder.  “I shouldn’t have asked.  I’m sorry.”

 

Tara nodded wordlessly.  After a moment she drew a long breath and opened her eyes, regaining control of herself.  “It’s all right,” she said, managing a smile.  “It’s all right.  You didn’t mean anything.”

 

Gabrielle started to say something further when the cloth hanging was brushed aside and Caesar entered the room, leaning heavily on his staff.

 

He looked awful, was Gabrielle’s first thought.  She had never seen him look worse, not even the day after he had appropriated her money for wine, when he had been so hung over he could barely stand.  He was pale, his face almost grayish, his eyes deeply shadowed.  His eyes brushed hers briefly and then dropped.  The air of utter confidence that had almost visibly surrounded him when she had first known him was nowhere in evidence.  He looked hunted, haunted, a beaten thing, like a dog who had been kicked so many times that he more expected it than not. 

 

 _He’s done,_ she thought to herself.  _He’s finished.  That battle I forced him into took the last of his strength.  That was all he had.  He’s got nothing left._   And she was both surprised and disturbed to find that his distress called forth no answering response in her.  _What’s wrong with me?_ she wondered, feeling almost guilty at her own callousness.

 

“That ridiculous _djinn_ -woman wants to meet with us.” 

 

Tara immediately sprang to the Crusader’s defense, her voice trembling.  “Don’t you dare call her that!  Najara is _not_ ridiculous!” she insisted furiously.  She glared hotly at Caesar, her eyes—as black as his own—flashing with anger.

 

“I’ll call her what I please,” he said shortly, but his words lacked strength.  He flicked a glance at the young healer and turned back to Gabrielle, waiting for her response.

 

Gabrielle frowned.  “What does she want?”  The thought of meeting the Crusader—of speaking face to face with that invincible woman who had come sweeping into the village earlier—caused something inside her to tremble.  She couldn’t tell if the idea frightened or excited her.

 

“She wants to hear about Xena’s death from us.”  He paused, watching her.  Gabrielle nodded.

 

“When?”

 

“Not until this evening.”  Caesar eyed her further, with a strange expression, almost an air of… _hesitancy?  Surely not…_   Gabrielle couldn’t figure out what he wanted.

 

“Okay.”  She turned away and went back over to the chest, picking up the roll of bandages she had dropped when she went to comfort Tara.  There was another pause.  Caesar remained where he was, watching Gabrielle almost as if he were waiting for some kind of a response from her.  Tara, from her writing desk, was still glaring at him; she evidently had not forgiven the insult to Najara. Caesar ignored her, focusing his attention on Gabrielle.  _Why isn’t he leaving?_ she wondered.

 

Finally she put down the bandages and stood up. “What?” she asked.

 

He hesitated a bit longer, then glanced at her sidelong.  He asked a strange question.  “What are you going to tell her?”

 

 _What am I—_   Gabrielle stared at him, puzzled.  “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, are you going to—“  He broke off with an exasperated sigh, rubbing briefly at his temples with one hand.  “Oh, never mind.”

 

“I’m going to tell her whatever she wants to know,” Gabrielle said, frowning in confusion.  “Xena’s dead.  I don’t see any reason not to….”  She paused, trying to read his expression.  “Why?  _Is_ there some reason not to?”

 

He only grunted and looked away.  It was Gabrielle’s turn to stare at him, trying to figure out what he was thinking.  She couldn’t guess.  _If I could only get at half of what goes on in his head, I’d probably have a lot more peace,_ she thought.

 

With a shrug, she brushed it off and turned to Tara.  “I’ve finished here,” she said, indicating the chest.  “If it’s all right with you, I’m feeling fine….with my hospice training, I think I could probably be useful out in the main tent with the other healers. At the very least, I could fetch and carry, and I don’t faint at the sight of blood.”

 

Tara looked at her for a moment.  “All right.  Najara left most of the healers behind with the main army, so this detachment is a little shorthanded,” she agreed.  “But if you feel dizzy or lightheaded, tell someone right away.”  She looked at Caesar, and her own dark eyes glinted.  “Take him with you.”

 

“Okay.”  Gabrielle closed the chest, then crossed the room and brushed aside the curtain hanging and stepped out.  She was somewhat surprised to find that Caesar followed right at her heels, without so much as a word.

 

[*]

 

The master healer was a tall man with black hair and a white streak in his beard; Gabrielle presented herself to him, stated that she had been trained as a volunteer at a hospice in the region of Potedaia, and asked to be put to work.  When she told him the name of the man who had been the head healer at her hospice, the master healer was pleasantly surprised; they had apparently apprenticed together.  “Well, if you were trained by Batanides, you were trained by the best,” he said genially, and put her to work assisting the surgeons who were still working—giving water, bandaging, passing tools, mopping wounds.  Gabrielle saw villagers she had known, however briefly, passing beneath the surgeons’ knives, men, women, the young, the old, as the healers did what they could to save those they could save.  She also saw something that touched her:  Najara’s healers cared.  They really cared.  She saw the muted pain in the eyes of the female healer who was forced to take a young woman’s leg off at the knee; she saw tears in the eyes of an older man working desperately to save the life of a young man who died on the table. 

 

Simply the fact that they were here, working to save the lives of these villagers and not just of Najara’s soldiers, spoke volumes about Najara, Gabrielle thought.  She remembered that Xena had spared not a shred of sympathy to the citizens of Athens after it had been sacked and burned, and in fact, afterwards she had actually seen Xena’s troops—more than once—pull one of the Athenian healers away from a severely injured patient and drag him back with them to treat her troops.  Xena’s own healers, a rough crew nearly as brutal as her men, had very emphatically saved their services for Xena’s troops, to keep them at their fighting prime; nobody else even merited consideration.  Callisto’s were even worse, so the bardic tales said:  it had been her healers, during Callisto’s siege of Sparta, that had suggested that the bodies of spotted plague victims be flung over the walls into the town, and sure enough that had caused the epidemic that had broken the backs of the resistance.  _And then Callisto had had all the resisters locked into their houses and the houses burned over their heads,_ she thought, and shuddered.  Looking at the faces of the healers around her, she saw real compassion and caring for those they were treating—commodities in very short supply in the world as it was, she thought.

 

 Caesar tended to the wounded as well.  He followed her out of the curtained area with Tara, up to the master healer; he followed her when the master healer directed her back to the surgery area; he was there as she fetched and carried for the surgeons who were operating.  When the healers sent her down the rows of wounded to give water, he took a seat on an upturned crate, probably because his legs wouldn’t take that much walking, but he watched her.  When she had him hold things for her—bowls, bandages, strips of cloth—he silently took them out of her hands, then gave them back to her when told to.  When she told him to give water or painkillers, he did so with a nod or a single word of acquiescence.  At first she was very surprised at what she interpreted as evidence of compassion on his part— _Him caring for the wounded?  I never would have thought it_ —but then she looked closer, at his deeply shadowed eyes, his bowed head, the slumped set of his shoulders.  He wasn’t helping out of compassion, she realized with a shock.  He wasn’t even helping because he wanted to, or was bored, or had nothing better to do.  He was helping solely because she had told him to.

 

 _He’s broken,_ Gabrielle thought as she took his hands and positioned them over a folded pad of cloth.  “Here.  Press here like this until the bleeding stops,” she instructed.  He glanced at her sidelong, then dropped his eyes; he did as she had said, applying pressure until she told him to stop.  When she stood up to move to the next patient he followed her as if she were drawing him after her on a string.  _He’s really broken,_ she thought as she handed him a bowl.  “Here.  Hold this until I say give it back,” she said.  He took it from her with a short nod, his eyes avoiding hers; when she asked for it back, he handed it to her without a word.  _I thought he was broken that first day in the inn with my belt knife, but I was wrong.  Whatever he had left, it’s gone._   “Here.  Wring these cloths into this basin until they’re dry.”  She had to slap him lightly on the shoulder to get his attention that time; he was staring down at the cloths in his hands, completely lost to his surroundings.  She wondered what he was thinking.  _I probably don’t want to know._   Once again, she felt no sympathy, and that very lack of sympathy worried her.

 

It wasn’t just him either; there was something else, a memory that kept eluding her as she lost herself in healing.  It was the memory of the man into whose back she had put her hatchet, back in the tavern.  With Licinus, she had been unable to put the thought out of her head; it had kept recurring to her at odd intervals, no matter how much she tried to push it aside.  With this man, she found she had to struggle to remember him; he kept slipping out of her mind unless she made a deliberate effort to concentrate on him.  That worried her even more.  Surely, it should be harder to forget about taking someone’s life than that, shouldn’t it?  _What’s wrong with me?_ she thought, not for the first time.

 

“Gabrielle!”

 

She turned at the cry of the familiar voice, to see a young man coming toward her.  “Androcles!” she greeted, remembering.  Seeing him suddenly brought the last moments in the tavern to mind, and she asked urgently, “Androcles, is Minya all right?”

 

“Minya?  Yes,” he said, nodding emphatically.  “She got a nasty cut to the arm, but the healers have seen to her already.  Ami…”  He paused, and his face clouded.

 

“She didn’t make it?” Gabrielle asked in a low voice.

 

Androcles shook his head.  “Right before Najara got there.  There was a man with an axe….Taurus dropped his pitchfork….”  He swallowed.  “She saved Taurus’s life,” he said after a moment.

 

“I’m sorry.”  Gabrielle shoved the handful of bandages she was holding at Caesar—who accepted them without a word—and reached out to touch Androcles on the arm.  “I wish….”  She bit her lip.  She hadn’t known Ami very long, but Ami’s and Minya’s courage in the face of overwhelming odds had been inspiring.  She didn’t quite know what to say, so she settled for squeezing the young man’s shoulder.

 

“She died a hero,” Androcles said, with a shrug that looked somewhat forced.  “Like Minya says:  at least she did something besides just stand there and wait to be slaughtered, right?” he asked.  “Minya’s outside, if you want to talk to her.”

 

“I do,” Gabrielle said, nodding.  “Just let me finish here, and I’ll be out.”

 

[*]

 

 

 _Was that only yesterday?_   Gabrielle had to stop and think.  So much had happened since then it seemed as if the events of the previous day had happened years ago.

 

She could see more; there were carts and wagons everywhere, horses and mules and donkeys laden with possessions following men and women and children walking at their heads.  The village seemed much busier than it had before, and Gabrielle guessed intuitively that the villagers who had taken to the hills under Zagreas’s threat had returned when they got word that the Crusader had chased him off.  _Something else in Najara’s favor,_ she thought, and frowned.

 

Zagreas’s men were chained in a long line in front of the encampment, with guards standing over them.  Some of them looked scared.  Some of them looked resentful.  Some of them looked angry.  Gabrielle looked away.  She wondered if Najara had spoken to them yet.  _Probably._   Tara had told her that Najara had been speaking to them earlier.  She wondered how many of them would end up converting to Najara’s light.  Caesar glanced at them, then also looked away; he followed her silently. Gabrielle wondered if he had seen this before.

 

Gabrielle felt her first, before she saw her.  It was as if a sixth sense spoke to her, somehow; she stopped in the middle of the field, and turned to look back over her shoulder, and there she was.

 

 _She_.  It was difficult, in that first moment when Gabrielle’s eyes found her, to think of any other designation; it seemed that surely, none was necessary.  Her presence, her charisma, was so overwhelming—indeed, almost a visible radiance spilling out from her to illuminate all she touched—that Gabrielle could think of her no other way.  Najara, the Crusader, She of the _Djinn_ —these were all shallow, surface reference terms.  They captured none of the primal, powerful essence of what she was.  _She_ was _she_.  Further description was not needed.

 

Xena and Callisto had been much the same, Gabrielle remembered as she watched the Crusader.  But where both of them had inspired pity and fear in her—a cold, atavistic, animal terror that had coiled up her spine and squeezed her stomach with icy fingers—Najara did not; she inspired— _trust?_

 

Najara’s presence was so strong that it seemed almost as if she were right there, at Gabrielle’s shoulder; it took Gabrielle a moment to realize that was not the case.  In actuality, the woman known as the Crusader was some distance away from her and Caesar; she was down at the other end of the sloping green field, walking along the dark shadows of the treeline.  The slanting, golden light of late afternoon sparkled in the hazy air, turning her short, butter-yellow hair to a strawberry blonde more similar to Gabrielle’s own and tinting her scale armor rosy.  The humid air caught the rays of the light and spread it around her, so that to Gabrielle’s eyes it seemed almost as if she were surrounded by a nimbus or halo.  Her hands were clasped behind her back, and her head was down slightly, face turned to the side; she seemed to be conversing with someone as she walked with measured, unhindered steps over the uneven field, but she commanded the attention to such a degree that it took Gabrielle a moment or two to spot Minya in the lee of Najara’s aura.

 

The peasant woman’s arm was bound to her side in a white sling; it stood out against the brown of her dress, hair and eyes.  Despite the injury, she walked at the Crusader’s side with confidence, with an air of steadfastness and determination that she had not possessed when Gabrielle had first met her.  This was no longer the beaten woman who had told her, “ _If Zagreas kills us, we’ll just have to die…I don’t have very much to live for anymore anyway.”_   The battle earlier—the experience of being able to strike back—had done wonders for her.  The peasant woman walked at the Crusader’s side, watching her with an air of respect, maybe even a little awe— _which surely is only to be expected,_ Gabrielle thought to herself—but at the same time without a trace of fear or fawning servility.  Najara might be the Crusader, her demeanor seemed to say, but _she_ was Minya the peasant woman, and anyone who thought she was a pushover was in for a big surprise.   Their conversation drifted toward Gabrielle on the lazy, humid air.

 

“—so you say your village will need another two hundred bushels of grain and four dozen amphorae of olive oil?” Najara was asking Minya courteously as they walked.  Minya nodded.

 

“At least, ma’am,” she replied, “an’ a coupla wells on the north side o’ the village ‘re goin dry—“

 

“I should be able to supply your needs from my stores,” Najara said with a warm smile, “and I’ll assign a detail of my men to get right on top of digging you some new wells.  Is there anything else?”

 

“Some of our houses got burned down in the fightin with Zagreas—“

 

“I’ll see if I have any carpenters among the men I have here with me.  We may be able to do something about that also.  If there’s nothing else—“ 

 

She started to turn from Minya, but the peasant woman reached out and caught her by the arm.  Gabrielle gasped to see the peasant woman accost the Crusader so.  Xena would have struck the woman to the ground right there for such insolence, and so would Callisto—if they didn’t simply draw their swords and run her through on the spot.  Najara, however, only turned back politely.  Gabrielle stared.

 

“ _Is_ there something else?”

 

“Yeah.”  Minya’s face settled into hard, accusatory lines.  “I got one thing else to say.  Are ya gonna stick around this time?”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“Ya heard me.  Are ya gonna stick around this time?” Minya asked.  Najara regarded her, looking surprised, with pale blue eyes; Gabrielle knew that she would have buckled under the weight of that stare.  Minya, however, held her ground and continued.  “Last time ya came through here, and ya turned this village into your command post, an’ it was all good—for a _while._   But then the Dark Conqueror and the Fiery Warrior chased ya back to Africa, an’ they came in an’ killed us and burned our crops and houses to the ground, over an’ over an’ _over_ again because they said we were supportin _you._   So the question I’m askin now is:  Are ya gonna stick around this time, or are ya gonna leave us hangin like ya did before?  Cause if that’s th’ case, then I’m askin ya to leave now if ya don’t mind,” she said harshly.  “There isn’t very much of our village left, but what there is, we’re kinda attached to, an we don’t feel like gettin burned down again because you couldn’t hold your ground.”

 

Her voice was sharp, and she was staring pointedly at Najara as she spoke.  Gabrielle was struck by Minya’s bravery and fortitude, to speak so to the Crusader, to She of the _Djinn,_ to face that overwhelming presence.  Then she was completely astonished, to see Najara’s reaction.  For Najara did not become angry.  She did not draw the slender curving sword that was at her back.  She did not strike Minya or threaten her, or even demand who she thought she was to address the Chosen of the _Djinn_ so.

 

Instead—and Gabrielle couldn’t believe it even as she saw it—that powerful, arresting woman bowed her head meekly before Minya’s sharp words of reproof, looking every bit as contrite as a child receiving a scolding.  _She’s acting as if Minya were the warlord and she the peasant!_ Gabrielle thought, amazed.  There was actually a thin trail of tears down Najara’s face as she replied, “You are right to reproach me for that.  I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry that happened to your village, that you had to go through that because of my failings.  I have nothing to say to excuse my unworthiness.  Nothing to make up for what happened to you because of me.  I can only make deepest apologies for my failures and beg your forgiveness, and request that you permit me to try and make atonement for all you suffered on my behalf.”

 

The tall warrior raised her head and looked back up at the peasant woman, humbly waiting for her response. Minya clearly had not been expecting that; she stood, staring at the patiently waiting Crusader, groping for words.  Gabrielle, who had not been expecting that either, found her mind going back to the week before, to the dark cave and bonfire of the former Romans.  _You’re responsible because you were the emperor!  You were supposed to protect us!  You were supposed to take care of us!  You were the emperor and YOU FAILED!_   She found herself turning to look at her companion, remembering how Caesar had squirmed and twisted to get out of it.  He had turned his face away from her, however, and she had no idea what the little she could see of his expression meant.

 

 “Well, all right,” Minya said after a moment.  “Just—don’t leave us this time is all I’m askin.”  She smiled, perhaps in an attempt to comfort the bereaved Crusader.  “Just don’t leave us again.  We’re countin’ on ya, you know.”

 

Najara gave a smile of gratitude.  “You have my thanks,” she said sincerely.  “I appreciate the faith you’re placing in me, and I’ll do my utmost to prove worthy of your trust.”

 

So saying, she clasped Minya’s hand tightly, squeezing it.  Minya released her, and she turned and started off.

 

She was heading vaguely in Gabrielle’s and Caesar’s direction, and Gabrielle watched her in fascination.  She was thoroughly impressed by what she had just seen, by Najara’s charisma, by her humble demeanor, by the way she had assumed responsibility for letting the village be burned.  Gabrielle wanted to go and speak to her, but was afraid at the same time; the Crusader’s presence was overwhelming, even at this distance.  Powerfully drawn to her and yet strangely hesitant, she turned to Caesar for support.

 

“Come on.  Let’s go talk to her,” she said eagerly.

 

She had taken his arm and started to draw Caesar in her direction, when he said, “No.”

 

Gabrielle stopped and turned back to look at him, frowning quizzically.  “No?  What do you mean, _no?_   Come on, let’s go.”

 

“I said, _no._   I don’t want to.”  He had taken a step back; now he backed up further.  Gabrielle stopped and looked at him closely.  She had honestly never seen anything like it from him before.  He was not looking at her.  He was staring at Najara, as she drew closer, with the most extraordinary expression of mingled dislike and— _fear?_   _Is that actually_ fear? she thought.  She had never seen _fear_ from him before, not ever, but she could not think of another name for what that might be.

 

 _Nah,_ she decided.  _Can’t be.  He just wants to avoid her because of what she just said about failure._   Just another example of his overall selfishness.  Her irritation rose.  “Come _on,”_ she said, her voice harshening.  She grabbed him by the arm.

 

He shook her off roughly.  “I _said_ I don’t _want_ to.  Leave me _alone,_ ” he snapped, frowning at her.  It was phrased as an order, but the words lacked force; they sounded more querulous than anything.

 

“Don’t be such a baby,” Gabrielle said impatiently.  “Come _on!”_   She grabbed him again, trying to haul him after her by main strength.  He wrenched free of her, glaring at her darkly, and pushed her away; she actually stumbled backward a few steps.  She knew his strength from a previous physical tryout; he also outweighed her by quite a bit, as she knew from having suffered him to lean on her at various times, but now she was mad.  She matched him, glare for glare. 

 

“Come _on!_ ” she said, and grabbed him again.

 

“Leave me _alone,_ you screeching bacchae—“

 

He tried to pull free but this time she held on doggedly.  “Quit being a jerk,” she snarled, digging in her heels and trying to push.  “Come on—“

“Let _go_ of me!”

 

They were saved from a descent into a full-scale shoving match by nothing less than the arrival of the Crusader herself; Najara had apparently seen the two of them struggling and had swerved to come over to them.  Gabrielle felt her at her back and went still an instant before Najara spoke.

 

 “Is there a problem?”  The voice was calm and polite, concerned, perhaps, and kind.  Gabrielle’s breath caught in her throat.  Those were the first words she ever heard the Crusader speak to her.

 

Gabrielle immediately dropped Caesar’s arm and stepped away from him, turning to face She of the _Djinn._   She was tongue-tied in the face of that incredible presence; she fumbled for words, and was only able to get out a sort of foolish stammering.  “I—we—ah—No,” she managed at last, flushing under the Crusader’s pale gaze.  _Not unlike Xena’s_ , she thought to herself.  “No, no—no problem!  Everything’s—fine!  It’s—“

 

She fell silent, aware that she was making a fool of herself.  From the corner of her eye, she saw that Caesar had gone rigidly still and pale, and was watching Najara as she imagined a rabbit might watch a hawk.  _What’s wrong with him?_ she wondered.  _Beside the obvious, I mean…._

 

Najara smiled kindly.  “You’re Gabrielle, right?”

 

 _She knows my name…?_   “Wow,” Gabrielle managed, feeling herself grin.  “Wow.  That’s—Right.  Yes, that’s right.  I’m Gabrielle.  How’d you know?  Was it—“  She hesitated.  “Was it your _djinn?_ ” she dared to ask.

 

“The _djinn?_ ”  Najara looked puzzled for a moment; then her face cleared.  “Oh, I see.  No, it was Jett; he told me you were in this town, and described you.  Quite well, actually.”

 

Gabrielle frowned, feeling somewhat disappointed to hear such a mundane explanation from such an overwhelming woman.  Najara studied her expression, then laughed gently.  “The _djinn_ —they’re not _my djinn_ —they don’t tell me everything,” she offered in consolation.  “I don’t really know why they choose to tell me what they do, either; I think they only tell me what they think I need to know.”  She turned to Gabrielle’s companion.  “You’re Caesar, isn’t that right?” she asked. 

 

Caesar said nothing, but watched her distrustfully.

 

“I think I’ve seen you before, but only from a distance,” Najara continued.  “You were Xena’s—“  She paused, and looked at him as if waiting for a cue.  Caesar made no sign, only continuing to watch her.  _He looks ready to bolt,_ Gabrielle thought, _if only he could walk._   “Xena’s captive,” the Crusader finished at last.

 

Caesar’s shoulders tensed underneath Najara’s pale regard, and his mouth twisted.  “Try Xena’s whore,” he said roughly.  “Her bed-slave.”

 

Najara looked at him for a moment longer.  “Slavery of any kind is one of the greatest evils there is,” she said quietly.  “I can’t even begin to imagine how you must have suffered.  You have my sympathy.”

 

“I don’t want it.  Don’t waste your time.”  Caesar’s hands were clenched white-knuckled on his staff.

 

“Nonetheless, you have it.”

 

Gabrielle spoke up, amazed at her own daring.  “You—you said you—you wanted to talk to us about—about Xena’s death?”

 

“Her death?”  Najara frowned; then her face cleared.  “Oh yes.  I do,” she said kindly, “but it will have to wait until tomorrow, if that’s all right.  I just received word about half an hour ago that there’s a contingent of stragglers from Zagreas’s army lurking in the woods to the west of here, and I must go and bring them in.  You are more than welcome to stay in our encampment if you would like to; just speak to Jett and he’ll arrange quarters for you.  Now, if you’ll excuse me—“

 

She pushed past Gabrielle and started off.  Gabrielle watched her go, bright in the light from the afternoon sun.  When she was halfway up the hill, she raised two fingers to her mouth and whistled.  Almost at once, it seemed to her, the brown horse she had been riding earlier appeared over the top of the hill, cantering straight toward her.  Gabrielle’s roommate at the bardic academy had been the daughter of a horse-breeding family, and Gabrielle had picked up enough about horses from her to make out features of this one: it was a mare of a type she had never seen before.  Her neck was strongly arched; her body was short and compact, and her tail carried high, like a banner streaming out behind her.  The legs were delicate and fine, and clean in their motion.  The head was short, with large eyes fringed with long lashes; the nose was concave and the profile dished.  This horse was as fine as Argo in her motion, and as beautiful. 

 

She galloped straight toward Najara, and Najara vaulted into the saddle without the horse ever taking time to slow down.  _Bonacar,_ she remembered Jett said Najara’s horse was called; she had seen Xena do the same thing with Argo, and Callisto with her horse Charybdis.  Once Najara had settled into the saddle, she touched her heels to Bonacar’s sides, and the horse stretched out, galloping toward the village as swift as the wind.  Gabrielle guessed Argo could run that fast, but she had always been afraid to ask her to.  Bonacar skimmed over the ground so lightly and effortlessly and at such speed that she and her rider almost seemed to fly.

 

 _“And the gods took a handful of southerly wind,_

 _Blew their breaths over it_

 _And created the horse,”_ Gabrielle murmured to herself, remembering a fragment of an old legend she had heard a long time ago. 

 

She turned to her companion to find Caesar staring after Najara as if he were watching a venomous serpent.  His reaction puzzled her.

 

“What did you think?” she asked him curiously.

 

“I don’t like her,” he replied almost immediately.  He never took his eyes away from the Crusader, even as she vanished into the distance.  His hands were still clenched on the staff, and his shoulders were tight with emotion.

 

“Why not?” Gabrielle asked.  “I thought she was—“  She broke off, trying to think of a word to come up with to describe Najara.  “Overwhelming,” she said at last, though that word didn’t encompass half of what she meant.

 

Caesar’s jawline tightened.  “So was Xena.”  Gabrielle looked at him in confusion, but he said no more, and his expression could have meant anything.  Shaking his head, he turned and, leaning on his staff, began making his way back to the healing tent from which they had emerged.  It was the first independent action he’d taken all afternoon, and somehow Gabrielle wasn’t surprised that it was effectively a retreat.  She watched Najara for a moment longer, and then went after her companion.

 

[*]

 

Gabrielle hadn’t been paying attention to where she was going as she wandered back toward the healing tent—her mind was too full of the effects of the Crusader.  _Wow.  Jett was right when he said there was nobody like her.  She’s incredible.  I wonder where she came from?_   Thoughts of the Crusader occupied her mind, and the raw shout of _“Gabrielle!”_ caught her completely by surprise.

 

She jerked to a halt and looked around, startled.  She saw that she had inadvertently wandered close to the lines of chained men, the prisoners Najara had taken who were still waiting for conversion to the Light.  _Did the shout come from one of them?_ she wondered.  Quickly, she ran her eyes down the lines, searching for someone, anyone, she—

 

 _“Gabrielle!  Oh, thank the gods!  Gabrielle!”_

 

She stopped, catching sight of a prisoner chained on the end, at a bit of a separation from the rest.  Probably because he was young, only about her age, and to place him in closer to the hard-bitten, vicious characters that made up the rest of the prisoners would be dangerous for him.  With a shock, she realized he was someone she knew. 

 

“S—Stallonus?”  she faltered, unbelieving.  Quickly she hurried across the distance between them.

 

“Gabrielle!  Thank the gods it’s you,” he said, with a sigh of relief.  “You wouldn’t believe how glad I am to see you here—“

 

 “Stallonus!” she said again as she drew close to him.  “What are you doing here?”

 

She remembered him; he had been one of the other students at the Athenian Academy for Performing Bards, and had come in a few months before she had.  She hadn’t been very close to him; he had been more interested in learning to announce for the Olympics than in learning the old sagas—the Olympics hadn’t been held in the last eight years, due to all the chaos in the world, but it was hoped that someday they would be held again.  He had had to leave a month or so before Xena attacked the city; she had heard that it was because his father had died, and his mother had called him home.  She had never expected to find him here.  “What are you doing here?” she asked him again as she reached him. “I thought your mother needed you—why are you here?”

 

“Gabrielle, am I glad to see you,” he said again, clutching at her.  “Listen, Gabrielle, you have to help me.  You have to get me out of here, all right?”

 

“Well, I will, Stallonus, but what are you doing here?” she asked, crouching down by him, still trying to come to grips with seeing him. “You’re not with Zagreas’s army, are you?”

 

“It’s all a mistake, Gabrielle,” he said urgently, holding on to her.  His eyes held her own.  “My mother died shortly after I got back to the farm.  I had nowhere to go.  Zagreas’s men caught me, they said if I didn’t fight for them they’d kill me!  I didn’t want to do it. You have to get me out of here, Gabrielle, all right?  You’ve got to help me—I know you can do it.  I _know_ you can.”

 

He was clutching her so tightly her hands ached where he held her.  His expression looked young, almost frightened in the fading light, as young and frightened as the face of Licinus a week ago.  She stared at him, remembering the classes they had taken together, the fun times they had had fooling around with their friends at the academy—it seemed _wrong,_ somehow to see him here.  What was he doing here?  For that matter, what was she?

 

“Help me, Gabrielle, please,” he said again, clutching her hands urgently.  “You’ve got to get me out of here.  I’ve heard about what Najara does.  She’s going to kill me, she will, because I can’t follow her Light!  My family has always been devoted to Isis, since as far back as we go, and we can’t abandon her.”  He was holding her eyes hard.  “She’s going to _kill_ me, Gabrielle—“

 

Gabrielle glanced over her shoulder toward the healing tent.  Tara was waiting for her there, she knew, and there were wounded to care for.  She turned her gaze back down to Stallonus, seeing the fear in his face.

 

“Okay.  Well, sit tight,” she said, pulling herself away from him.  “I was invited to have dinner with Najara.  I’ll talk to her.  I’ll tell her I know you and that there’s no way you’re mixed up in anything bad, okay?  I’ll get her to let you go, all right?” she said.  “I can’t imagine it’ll be that difficult.”

 

“You promise?” he asked uncertainly.

 

“I promise,” she replied.

 

“What if she won’t?” he asked her.

 

“I’m sure she will,” Gabrielle assured him.  “Don’t worry.”  She couldn’t imagine the kind woman she had seen would not listen to her, if she assured her that Stallonus was her friend.

 

“Okay.”  He calmed.  “I trust you, Gabrielle.  Thank the gods for you.  I know you can help me.”

 

“Don’t worry,” she told him again.  She glanced over her shoulder at the tent of the healers.  “Look, I’ve got to go, all right?  There are wounded to care for.  Will you be all right here?  Do you need anything?”

 

Stallonus gave a bitter laugh.  “It’s not like I have much choice, is it?  Just get me out of here, Gabrielle; that’s all I’m asking.”

 

“I’ll have you out in no time.”  She glanced at the healers’ tent again.  “Just leave it to me,” she said, and flashed a reassuring smile.  Stallonus slowly, reluctantly smiled back.

 

“Well, go on, Gabrielle,” he told her.  “I trust you,” he said again.

 

“Thanks.”  She rose to her feet, somewhat reluctantly, and looked at him.  He smiled at her again. 

 

“Go on.  I understand,” he told her.  “You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t always helping someone.”

 

“Thanks,” Gabrielle said, touched.  She smiled at him, then turned and made her way back to the tent of the healers.  _Don’t worry, Stallonus,_ she thought.  _I can’t imagine it’ll be that hard to get Najara to let you go._

 


	2. Chapter 2

Najara did not come back until long past nightfall.  Gabrielle returned to the healers’ tent, with Caesar at her heels, and spent the rest of the day working, tending to the wounded, fulfilling the healers’ instructions.  By sunset, she was so tired she could barely stand, and Caesar had long since left her side to sit down on an upturned crate, where he sat rubbing his twisted lower legs absently, not looking at her or anything.

 

Jett had stayed behind, to manage the camp in Najara’s absence; when Gabrielle approached him about quarters for herself and Caesar, he immediately showed her to Najara’s own command tent—a huge structure divided into internal sections by woven partitions within. 

 

“Putting us in her command tent?” Caesar muttered.  “Does she trust us that much, or that little?”

 

He had spoken mostly to himself, but Jett heard him anyway.  “It’s Najara’s custom to extend to all guests the hospitality of her own tent,” he said sternly.  “Both to do them honor and so that she can see to their comfort.”  He paused.  “Najara trusts everyone.  At least, until they have proven themselves untrustworthy.”  Staring pointedly at Caesar, he said, “Some of us fall regrettably short of Najara’s faith in people’s intrinsic goodness.  Keep it in mind.”  He glanced at Gabrielle.  “Good night, Gabrielle,” he said with more warmth.  So saying, he turned and exited through the curtained hanging. 

 

The section they had been given was small, not much bigger than Gabrielle’s room at the Bardic Academy; Jett had told them that Najara’s own sleeping chamber itself was no bigger.  Two folding cots stood, one against either wall, both piled high with colorful striped blankets, and a single lamp swung from the ceiling.  Gabrielle moved to take the cot closest to the door.

 

Caesar looked around, unimpressed.  “Her own tent,” he said again, speaking more to himself than to her.  “Xena would never have done that.”

 

“Shut up,” Gabrielle said, glaring at him.  He looked in her direction, startled, then dropped his eyes.  She had to admit, his new passivity made him a lot easier to get along with.  She wondered how long it would last.

 

He slowly sank down on the opposite cot, as Gabrielle sorted through the blankets; many of them were woven with brightly colored, elaborate patterns.   _These are gorgeous,_ she thought, feeling the soft textures.  _I wonder where they’re from…_   She was absorbed in examining the blankets when her companion spoke again.

 

“You saved my life.  You _killed_ to save me.”

 

Gabrielle looked around at him, surprised.  He was watching her, his brows drawn together in a frown.  She couldn’t decipher his expression.  “When?  You mean…Licinus?”  Her voice hitched a little there; it was still painful to speak of him.

 

A hint of irritation showed in his dark eyes; this, she understood.  “Back at the tavern.”

 

“At the…”  Then the memory came back to her, of putting the axe into the man’s back.  A shiver ran down her spine at the realization that she had forgotten again.  “I guess I did,” she said slowly.

 

He was silent for a while, watching her with that strange look.  “What is it?” she demanded at last. 

 

His frown deepened.  “You said you weren’t going to kill again.”

 

 _You said you—_   His words rang in her mind.  Gabrielle felt herself tense, her hands closing into fists at her sides, as dozens of responses flickered rapidly through her mind.  _If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have,_ or _I_ saved _your_ life, _don’t you have any gratitude,_ or _You’ve got a lot of nerve taunting me about this…_   She finally settled for, “What’s your point?”

 

“Why did you do that?”

 

“Aren’t you grateful?” she asked, pulling a blanket around her shoulders.

 

Caesar was silent again, watching her.  Gabrielle decided she was getting very tired of that look.  “Are you going to sit there staring at me all night?” she demanded with open hostility.

 

He looked away.  “You shouldn’t have done it,” he said.  “It wasn’t any of your business.”

 

 _Wasn’t any of my—_   Gabrielle stared at him, wondering if he were joking and if not, if she should laugh anyway.  She bit back her first two or three responses with difficulty.  “Well, I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” she finally settled on.

 

Caesar must have heard the irony in her voice, because he looked back at her.  “Couldn’t you just have left me alone?”  His voice held that querulous tone she had heard him use with Najara; it was so different from what she had been accustomed to hearing from him that she stared at him, wondering.  “Why did _you_ have to interfere?” he demanded, with more heat this time.  There was something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before—though maybe she had seen a hint of it the night he had gotten drunk—a strange glitter that she didn’t know how to interpret.  “Why couldn’t you just have stayed out of it?  _Why?_ ”

 

It was Gabrielle’s turn to frown.  She wasn’t entirely sure he was still talking about the tavern.  “What do you—“

 

“ _Why?”_ he demanded again.  There was anger in his voice, but that wasn’t all; there was _pain_ too, and it surprised her to hear it.  “If _you_ had just let me—if you had never—“  He cut himself off with an effort, looking down at his hands; Gabrielle was surprised to see that they were trembling slightly.  He clenched his fists, and she actually saw him swallow.

 

“I guess it should be harder than that to let someone die,” she said after a long moment.  She said it to him, but she was thinking of Stallonus, whom she had promised to save, and of Licinus, and the man she had killed at the tavern— _Artis,_ she recalled with a start.  _He had a name.  The man Jett killed said, You killed Artis._  

 

“ _Should_ be.”  Caesar shook his head, as if unable to believe such naivete, but he didn’t look at her.  “Next time, don’t bother.”

 

 

A distant thunder of hoofbeats interrupted their conversation at that point, and the light hanging from the tent ceiling began to sway.  Gabrielle immediately guessed what it was, and got to her feet.  _She’s back.  Najara’s back._

 

She pushed through the hanging curtains that blocked off their little compartment, into the outer room of the command tent, and went to the door.  Caesar followed her a moment later; it took him a moment to get up.  Gabrielle had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the night beyond, lit by flaring torches and a roaring bonfire; when they did, she ran her gaze over the scene before her, looking for Najara.

 

Horses and men were milling around in the center square of camp, before the line of Zagreas’s men that had been drawn up yesterday.  Gabrielle recognized none of them.  More prisoners were being fastened into the line as she watched, their forms indistinct in the light cast by the fire under the dark sky.  Some of them were cursing furiously the men of Najara’s camp who chained them so; but Najara’s men did their work resolutely, without angry responses, fastening the men into line efficiently but not with cruelty.  Now Gabrielle noticed a platform standing in front of the lines of men; she wondered at it.  Caesar had lurched forward behind her and was looking over her shoulder; she turned to glance at him.  “Do you see her?”  He shook his head.  She wondered what he was looking for.

 

“I’m looking for Bonacar, but I don’t see her either,” Gabrielle continued.  “Do you—“ 

 

Her words broke off.  Najara ascended the platform.

 

Gabrielle’s eyes instantly went to the Crusader.  The roiling commotion in the square quieted to stillness before the force of her presence; even the cursing and swearing of Zagreas’s men stopped, as She of the _Djinn_ drew their attention.  She must have been tired, Gabrielle thought, having been active for most of the day and long into the night, but it didn’t show; her tall, slim form was straight and unbowed as she mounted the steps to the platform, removed her helmet, and paced to the edge of the wooden stage, facing the prisoners.  The grandeur that surrounded her as she looked down on the prisoners before her took Gabrielle’s breath; Najara regarded them with as magisterial a mien as if she were a judge about to pass sentence.  Quickly, Gabrielle glanced at the prisoners, to see what their reactions were; it was hard to make out their expressions in the darkness of the night, but an awed hush seemed to hang over the dual lines of men, as they waited under her regard.  Najara paused a moment, ran her pale blue eyes over the assembled throng.  The camp quieted to stillness before her.  She regarded them a moment longer, then drew a breath and began to speak.

 

“All of you gathered here before me have done wrong under the Light.”  She did not speak loudly, but her words carried in the stillness; Gabrielle thought distantly that she wished she knew that trick.  There was no anger in her words, no hostility, no accusation; she spoke as if she were simply laying out facts.  “You are evildoers all, as I am sure you know.  Your crimes against the Light are manifold and self-evident, and each and every one of you deserve death for your crimes, often several times over.”  She paused, running her eyes over the prisoners before her.  There was not a word spoken in the hush; the force of her presence forbade it.  Gabrielle realized she had forgotten to breathe. 

 

“I hold your lives in my hands,” Najara continued, regarding them all.  Again, she spoke without triumph, without pride, without pleasure; she was merely stating an obvious truth.  “I, the Crusader and Chosen of the _Djinn._   Unworthy as I am, it has pleased the Light to make me its arbiter, and to deliver you all into my mercy and keeping.  I could kill you at this moment, should I so choose it; I have only to give the order and it will be done.  There is not a one of you who has not earned this punishment for your deeds.  How do I know this?” she asked.  “Because I know only too well that my own unworthiness is more than enough to merit me a similar fate—and so, then, how much worse must yours be?”

 

She paused again, regarding them all.  Gabrielle stared at Najara’s stern, unbending form.  She had never heard anything like this before.  The prisoners seemed stunned by her presence.

 

“I could kill you all at this moment and name it justice,” Najara was going on.  The very lack of heat in her voice made her words all the more riveting.  “There would be very few who would gainsay me, and the Light itself would approve of your deaths.  Understand this very clearly, for the Light _is_ justice, as I am its arbiter.  The Light is justice….but it is also more.  It is also _mercy_.  No one may walk so long in darkness that he cannot come again to the Light.  So for this reason, though my sword is at your throats, I stay my hand.  Instead, I come before you now to offer you a choice.” 

 

She paused again, giving time to let the words sink in.  Her words rang in the night air; even the crackling of the fire could not dim the impact of her speech.  Gabrielle’s eyes picked Jett out of the crowd, standing to the side of the dais; he was watching Najara fixedly.  She wondered if he were reliving his earlier moment of conversion.

 

“Come to the Light.  Renounce your evil ways.  I know the pain you are in.  I feel it as if it were my own.  The lives you have led are lives full of suffering, for to inflict suffering is to incur it yourself.  You do not have to stay on this path.  There is an end to the lives of pain you are living, and forgiveness waiting for all who wish to seek it.  The Light will welcome and protect you, no matter what you have done—so long as you accept it and permit it into your life.  Forswear your former life of cruelty and evil deeds.  Devote your life to amending your ways—to bettering the lot of your fellow sufferers.  Come to the Light and your life will be cleansed of the evil you have done.  You will be able to start anew, as pure as the driven snow.  You will at last be able to find peace.  Accept the offer I have laid out for you, and be saved.  It is the mercy of the Light that is being offered to you.  If you refuse this mercy, this opportunity—then I will be forced to act as the Light has appointed me, and carry out your execution.

 

“This is your choice.  Accept the Light, or be released to the darkness.  And be forewarned:  Once you swear to the Light, you must keep to its ways; or else I will know that you swore falsely, and will carry out the sentence.  You will have three days to decide.  I hope,” she said with quiet sincerity, “that you all choose to come to the Light.”

 

Najara finished, and stepped down.  She had not spoken with force or fire, but none was needed.  The strength of her presence gave her words a weight which mere bombastic posturing could never have done.  As she descended the stairs from the dais, the prisoners were silent, except for a low murmuring as soft as the wind in the trees; Gabrielle knew that if she had been one in that bunch, she would have been instantly swayed.  She glanced at Caesar to check his reaction, but could not tell anything from his face; his expression was closed and watchful.

 

Najara paused a moment by the stage, speaking with Jett in a low voice that did not carry, and then came toward them.  When she drew closer, Gabrielle could see that she was tired; the Crusader was walking slowly and stiffly; her head was bowed as if in contemplation, and there was a set to her shoulders that spoke of fatigue.  Nevertheless her back was straight and she moved with a regal bearing, as if her spine had been made of iron.  There was that about She of the _Djinn_ which would neither bend nor break; even contemplating the possibility that the Crusader might be bent or broken seemed wrong, a self-evident absurdity.  Gabrielle had sensed nothing of this in either Xena or Callisto, though she sensed nothing of either Xena’s raw savagery or Callisto’s manic intensity in Najara.

 

Najara caught sight of the two of them in the shadow of the tent, and halted.  “Gabrielle,” she said slowly.  “Caesar.”  It took her a moment to continue; she paused, gathering herself.  “Welcome.  I’m pleased you decided to lodge in the camp,” she said courteously.  “I regret that I was not here earlier to see to your accommodations myself; I hope they’re acceptable?”

 

“Oh, they’re fine!” Gabrielle said, impressed; as tired as she was, clearly Najara was prepared to do whatever was necessary to see first to the comfort of her guests.  “They’re fine, everything’s great—we’re just glad you made it back safely—“  She didn’t bother to glance over at Caesar to see his reaction to this white lie.

 

The Crusader smiled.  “I’m glad to hear it.  Is there anything more you require?”

 

“No, everything’s great,” Gabrielle said emphatically.  “Thanks for your hospitality—“

 

“You’re welcome.”  Najara paused again, gathering her strength.  “I apologize that I cannot spend time speaking with you tonight, but—“

 

“No, no, it’s okay!”  Gabrielle briefly considered bringing up Stallonus, but changed her mind; Najara was clearly exhausted, almost asleep on her feet, and Gabrielle could tell this would not be the best time for it.  _Tomorrow,_ she promised herself. 

 

“Tomorrow then.”  Najara moved past Gabrielle and into the depths of the tent.  Gabrielle followed her, and Caesar followed Gabrielle, just like ducklings on a string; the Crusader withdrew through the curtain that Jett had pointed out as her own chamber, in the wall to the right of the door that Gabrielle’s and Caesar’s room lay through.  Gabrielle glanced at her companion.

 

“What did you think?” she asked in a low voice.

Caesar glanced at her.  He looked away, shaking his head.  “She’s crazy,” he muttered.  “Xena was never crazy.”

 

Gabrielle frowned at him.  She started to reply, but he had dropped his gaze, appearing to be closely examining an irregularity in the wood of his staff.  With a sigh, she let it go, and pushed past him into their sleeping chamber.  Caesar followed without saying a word.

 

[*]

 

A while later,  Gabrielle opened her eyes in the darkness.

 

Disorientation clutched at her, and for a moment, she could not remember where she was.  Was she back in her bed in Potedaia?  Was she in her room at the bardic academy?  The tavern they had stayed at earlier?  These locations flickered through her mind as she felt the soft blankets over her, the hard bed frame under her, and it took her a moment to remember:  She was in the command tent of the Crusader Najara, She of the _Djinn._

 

She lay still for a moment, trying to figure out what had woken her.  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the interior, she scanned the dim outlines of the room.  Against the far wall, Caesar lay shrouded in shadow on the opposite bed; at first, his long, slow breathing was the only sound she could hear.  She listened harder, trying to hear anything else.  Then, her ears caught it, and once they caught it, she could not unhear it.

 

It was the sound of a voice, rising and falling in the cadences of speech.  _Najara’s voice,_ she thought, and wondered if something was wrong.  Silently, she slid out of bed and crossed the floor to her companion.

 

“Wake up,” she whispered, shaking him.  “Do you hear that?  Wake up.”

 

In the darkness, she saw him flinch back from her touch; his head jerked up, and he found her with his eyes.  It seemed to take him a moment to recognize her and orient himself.  “What?” he asked, in a voice as low as her own, when he had done so.

 

“Do you hear that?  It sounds like Najara.  I think something might be wrong….”

 

He seemed almost to shrink in on himself at the mention of the Crusader.  Gabrielle frowned, puzzled, then dismissed it, assuming she was wrong.  “Is there anyone else?” he asked her softly.

 

Gabrielle listened.  “I can’t hear anyone,” she breathed.  “What’s she saying?  Can you make it out?”

 

“I….”  He stopped, and bowed his head; it was hard to see in the darkness of the interior, but Gabrielle thought he might be frowning.  “I don’t know,” he said at last.

 

“Move over.”  Gabrielle pushed at Caesar roughly, shoving him aside.  He made no protest, but let himself be so pushed; she spared another moment to wonder at this newfound passivity of his.  She clambered up on the frame bed beside him and ran her fingers along the cloth tent wall, searching for a gap in the partition.  She found one—a tiny rip in the fabric—and put her eye to it, looking through to the other side.

 

The space on the other side of the partition was lit by moonlight, a shaft falling from an open tent flap.  It looked almost identical to their compartment, except that there was only one bed instead of two, and that a carved foot locker stood at the end of the bed; the room was simple, spartan, the room of one not interested in things of this world.  The shaft of moonlight slanted onto the floor, lending a pale radiance to the scene before Gabrielle’s eyes.

 

In the center of the fall of light, right in the middle of the tiny room, Najara knelt on a small rug.  Her hands were clasped in front of her, her sword staked in the ground before her.  The moonlight turned her blonde hair to silver, and lent her features an unearthly, almost marble cast; she looked like a statue.  Her head was bowed, her eyes closed.  She was completely alone.

 

“Do you see her?” Caesar whispered.  The uneasiness she had noticed earlier was in his voice; he sounded as if he were asking about the behavior of a dangerous animal.  Gabrielle turned her head to look at him.

 

“She’s….praying,” Gabrielle responded slowly.

 

Even in the darkness, she could see Caesar’s surprise. He started to say something. “Shhh….” Gabrielle waved a hand at him and put her eye to the small tear again. She strained, trying to tune her ears to Najara’s voice.

 

Once she had, she realized what had woken her.  Najara was not praying.  She was _begging._

 

“I know that I am your chosen,” she was saying.  “I know that I have been chosen to be the arbiter of the Light on earth.  But when I look into the depths of my soul, I see there such unworthiness—such imperfection—that I cannot help but doubt.  And even this doubt is another imperfection,” she was saying, her voice actually trembling, “because it is _your_ will I doubt and you are perfect in all things.  I know my flaws to the last stain on my soul, and knowing myself as I do, I can only wonder that you would ever choose an instrument as imperfect as I am to carry out your will.  I know that my path has been laid out for me, and that my reward will not come to me in this life.  And it is enough; I accept it and I am content.  But sometimes….sometimes I fear that I have not the strength to walk the path, to do what must be done.  I fear that I will fail you.  I see that I fail you every day, in more ways than I can even begin to count.  I know that you are mercy in all things, that you know my weaknesses and my failings and have forgiven me for them, that you will not grant me burdens for which I do not have the strength.  I can only ask,” she continued, her voice shaking, “that you forgive me my lack of courage as well, and help me to know that I am strong enough to bear that which you ask me to bear.”

 

The Crusader was actually weeping, Gabrielle saw; the moonlight reflected from shining tracks of silver down her cheeks.  Gabrielle drew back from the sight, amazed, and turned away from the small opening.  _Does she actually think that?_ she wondered, stunned, as her eyes adjusted to the darkened interior of her own room.  The idea that this indomitable woman could see herself so was almost incomprehensible to her.  She felt herself flush; she knew that she had seen something she was not meant to see.

 

She glanced over at Caesar.  It was dark in the interior of their chamber but she could see enough to dimly make out his expression.  She could tell he had heard what Najara was saying too.  Neither of them said anything; there was nothing to say.  It was the first time in all their weeks together that she had ever felt any sort of commonality with Caesar, but she could see in that moment that she and he were thinking the exact same thing. 

 

Troubled, Gabrielle returned to her own bed.  It took her a long while to sleep.

 

[*]

 

When they awoke in the morning, Najara had already gone.  She had apparently offered an address to the captives at sunrise, as was her custom, and then taken off with a small band in search of more stragglers, or other villages that might need her help, so they were told by Jett.

 

Caesar was glad she was gone.  He didn’t want to deal with her.  Something about her frightened him, on a gut level.  He hated to admit it, but it was true.  She was too much.  Too overwhelming, and he had no defenses left against her.  Just the thought of She of the _Djinn_ was enough to make him want to cower, to make him feel helpless, pleading, weak.  He would have despised himself for it, if he’d had enough of himself left to despise.

 

What he had seen the night before only increased his apprehension.  He didn’t understand it.  He had never seen anything like it from Xena, could not imagine her pleading in that fashion.  Xena had been overwhelming too, perhaps even more so in her way than Najara, but at least he had understood her….Thought he had understood her, anyway. 

 

Najara thought she’d failed.  What did she know about failure, he thought bitterly.  She hadn’t the first idea what it meant to really fail.  He’d failed in every way possible.  He’d even failed to die.  He knew more of failure than she ever would.

 

Caesar had not wanted to get up.  What did he have to wake up for?  But that stupid girl had tugged at him and refused to let him be.  She had dragged him out of bed and over to the healers’ tent, where they had spent most of the day before.  The other one was there, the dark-haired girl whose name he hadn’t caught earlier, and she and Gabrielle had spoken together briefly; he had paid no heed, looking into the distance and thinking about Rome and Xena, and what he had heard Najara saying last night—about how she’d failed.  Eventually she had concluded her conversation and left, walking down the lines of cots where the wounded lay.  He followed her, though his legs ached.  It was something to do.  From time to time she would speak to him, or hand him things and give him instructions—orders, really.  He took them and did with them as she told him.  It didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered anymore.  Everything seemed very distant from him.  His mind kept returning to the central question that had worn a rut through his thoughts in the past few days.  It was like a wound he was compelled to pick at, over and over again.  The question of Rome.

 

 _She wouldn’t have spared Rome._

 

He stared down at his hands, seeing them only vaguely.  He was holding a bowl, he saw—a chipped clay bowl full of water, in which bloody bandages were soaking.  Strangely he couldn’t remember taking it from her.  Not that it mattered.  The scars on his wrists seemed to stand out, under the filtered light that made it through the tent flaps

 

 _She might have.  You know that she might have. You could have at least taken the chance._

 

He could have taken the chance.  She might have spared his city….except that for her to do so would have gone against everything he knew of her.  Everything he had learned in the last five years, chained to the base of that hideous dragon throne of hers, lying wrapped in her sleeping furs at night, traveling in her baggage train with the rest of her possessions and trophies.  He knew her.  He _knew_ her, in all her moods, better than anyone, and could not conceive of a circumstance in which the Destroyer of Nations would have let Rome stand.  It was not a case of wishful thinking.  The Xena he knew so well would _never_ have spared his city.  He was sure of it.

 

 _As sure as you were of your destiny?_

 

The bowl was gone.  Now he was holding sponges.  He couldn’t remember taking those either.  The sponges were also bloody, dripping over his hands onto the dirt floor of the tent.  It was strange, watching them drip, watching the lines of liquid running over the backs of his hands.  Were those even his hands?  The blood was dark in the dim light.  Everything felt wrong, somehow, as if he weren’t really there at all.  His legs throbbed at him.

 

As sure as he had been of his destiny.  He’d been wrong about that.  Maybe he was wrong about this.  He hadn’t known it then.  Maybe he had been wrong then.  Maybe then she would have.

 

The sponges were gone now.  His hands were still bloody.  They moved, seemingly of their own accord, smearing the blood trails.  He hadn’t done that.  Had he?  He didn’t think so.  It was hard to breathe.  If she had spared Rome, he would have had something to come back to.

 

Something struck his shoulder. Xena had sometimes done that, to command his attention. Harder than this, though. He’d barely felt it.

 

Another blow.  Slowly, he raised his head.  It wasn’t Xena.  It was that blonde girl—Gabrielle—standing in front of him.  She seemed very remote, as if he were seeing her from a far distance.  She was talking, he became aware slowly; he listened, and her words came to him.  She was upset with him for something.  Something to do with the sponges?

 

“…and I asked you for them back, where did you put them?” she was saying.  Her voice echoed strangely in his ears.  “Come on, this is the third time today you’ve misplaced something I handed you. Can’t you pay attention to what you’re doing?  I really need those, and you—“

 

She was upbraiding him because he had done something wrong, he realized vaguely. He couldn’t tell just what it was. Her voice drilled at him. He wished she would stop talking and leave him alone. No, he realized. That’s not right. He wished she had left him alone. If she had just left him alone to start with….

 

“I’m sorry,” he said.  It was something to say, to make her be quiet.  It worked.  She broke off mid-rant and stared at him.  He couldn’t tell what her expression was.  He looked back down at his hands.  The blood had dried on them, to a strange brown color.  Maybe Xena would have spared Rome, he thought dimly.  Maybe she would have.  He’d never thought he could have been wrong back then, but he’d been wrong.  Wrong about a lot of things.  He could have been wrong about that.

 

Gabrielle had started talking again.  “Well, that’s all right,” she was saying slowly.  “If you can just remember where you—“

 

It was too much.  Suddenly he couldn’t do it, couldn’t sit there and listen to her a moment longer.  His chest felt like it was being crushed with lead.  None of it seemed real, not the tent, not the wounded, not the stupid sponges she was hectoring him about, not even Gabrielle herself.  It was all remote from him.  As she spoke, he reached out and took the staff she had found for him from the pile of boxes where it had been lying.  Leaning on his staff, he simply turned his back on her and lurched out of the tent, moving like the slow, crippled thing he was.  She might have called after him; but he paid her no heed.

 

The sunlight was hot outside.  A large boulder lay at the front of the tent, under a spreading beech tree, and he made his way over to it.  The boulder was warm with the heat of the sun.  He sat down and placed his staff between his feet.  Then leaned forward and braced his head on his hands, closing his eyes.

 

 _Xena wouldn’t have spared Rome._   Well, maybe she would have.  Really, what did he know, anyway?  He’d been wrong about everything else.  Probably he was also wrong about this.  Probably she would have.  _She would have_.  Which meant that he had no one but himself to blame for the loss of his city.

 

 _That stupid bard._   Why did she have to rescue him?  Why did she have to get involved?  _Why?_   Had he ever _wanted_ her to?  If she had just left him alone—if she had never come along— _then what?_   He’d still be chained to the base of Xena’s throne.  Or dead.  He’d rather be dead.  Or chained.  At least then…at least then…. _Damn her, anyway._   If she had just stayed _out_ of it....

 

Footsteps approached.  He didn’t have the strength to raise his head, but he directed his gaze up to see Jett, the assassin, coming toward him.

 

“Why aren’t you helping Gabrielle?”

 

It took him a moment to respond.  When he looked up at Jett, it was almost as if some of _her_ presence lingered around him, as if some of the overwhelming power that Najara carried was reflected off onto the assassin.  This was not something Caesar had sensed when he had met the assassin before.   Not until he had met _her._   He looked down at his hands and saw they were shaking at just the thought of her; he clasped them together quickly. 

 

At least he’d understood Xena, he thought again.  Of course, maybe he hadn’t.  Maybe he’d been wrong about that too.

 

Speaking was a physical effort, leaving him as weak as if the words were boulders he were pushing uphill.  “Najara.”

 

Jett frowned.  “What about her?”  He looked confused.  Caesar realized distantly that what he had said didn’t follow from what Jett had said.  It didn’t matter.  What Jett had said didn’t seem to have anything to do with him.

 

“You….if you….”  It was too much effort.  The words were too heavy.  He didn’t know what he wanted to say anyway.

 

“If I what?” Jett was looking more confused.  He seemed as remote from Caesar as Gabrielle had earlier.

 

“If she…”  He closed his eyes for a moment.  He drew a breath, gathering his strength.  His insides felt hollow, as if his heart had been cut out of his body.  “If she—had an offer.  From Xena.  To sacrifice herself for her army.  Would she?”  He didn’t know why he was asking Jett this.  Jett looked utterly surprised.  He seemed as far away as if he stood across a gulf.

 

“Why?  Did Xena think about making her that offer?”

 

“Just.  Would she?”

 

Jett shrugged.  “You should ask _her._   But I think it would depend…I think she would unless the _djinn_ told her not to—where are you going?”

 

With what seemed like a titanic effort, Caesar had raised himself to his feet.  The wood of the staff felt strangely rough under his hands.  His ruined legs throbbed under him.  Even the pain seemed distant.  The presence of that assassin suddenly was every bit as unendurable as Gabrielle’s had been earlier.  He wasn’t interested in the rest of what Jett had to say either.  The command tent was beyond the healing tent.  Caesar went back to it. Jett called after him.  He didn’t answer.

 

The tent was deserted.  When he reached it, he went to the area he and Gabrielle had slept in the night before.  He lay down on the cot Najara had provided them and pulled the striped blankets over himself.  He slept. 

 

That afternoon, he felt a little better.

 

[*]

 

Najara returned at the end of the day, giving orders for the supply train to head north; there were two more villages up there suffering a terrible drought and facing famine.  Her return was greeted gladly by the healers; the head healers let the apprentice healers go for the day when the news came that she was back.  “Are you going to go to circle tonight?” Tara asked her, as the two of them took off their long aprons side-by-side and washed their hands.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Every night if Najara’s around, we do circle,” Tara explained.  “In the main army, we do circle whether or not she’s around—we circle in our companies, cause there are too many of us to circle all together.  With this small detachment, though, we’ve only been circling if she’s here.  Basically we all get together at the end of the day and talk.  Sometimes we tell stories and sing songs.  Sometimes Najara tells us about the Light.  Tonight I’m going to dance,” she said, smiling at Gabrielle.  “I would like it if you could be there,” she added hesitantly.  “I’m always kind of nervous before I dance.”

 

“Oh, do you dance?” Gabrielle asked.  At Tara’s nod, she said, “That’s great.  I’m a bard…maybe I could perform at circle sometime too.”

 

“If you stay with us,” Tara assured her warmly.  “I’m sure Najara would love for you to perform.”

 

“Well, just let me finish up with a few things here and get my companion, and I’d be happy to watch you.  I bet you’re a really good dancer,” Gabrielle told her reassuringly.  “Don’t be nervous.  You’ll do fine.”

 

“Okay.  I have to go get ready.  I hope you can be there,” Tara told her, and hurried out of the tent.

 

Caesar did not want to come; Gabrielle found him lying in bed, his face turned to the wall.  It took her physically pulling on his arm, as well as all the scolding skills she possessed, to get him out of it.  “Come on!” she told him angrily.  “You can’t just lie in bed all day.  Everybody else in the whole camp is going.  Don’t you want to see Tara dance?”  No, he didn’t want to see Tara dance.  He met her eyes briefly, then dropped his gaze.  Once she got him up and moving, she thought he looked somewhat better than he had that morning; then, he had looked like death warmed over.  At least now his face had some color to it.  His eyes still were deeply shadowed and fled from hers, but at least he seemed capable of responsiveness on some level.  It had been sort of creepy that morning, the way he had seemed so absent, giving her the impression that he was nothing more than a lifeless shell.  For the first time in a while, she wondered if he was still sane.

 

By the time Gabrielle had dragged Caesar out of bed, helped him to stand up, put his staff in his hands, and more or less shoved him out the door of the tent, she could already hear drums beating to the north of camp.  The main body of the encampment had emptied out; there were guards standing over the prisoners, but no people walking through the avenues of the camp.  The pounding of the drums intensified as Gabrielle and Caesar drew closer to the crowd of people gathered just outside of the northern encampment.

 

The crowd was drawn up in a large, rough ring around a patch of ground about the full size of the command tent.  They were seated, talking quietly with each other or watching the dance.  Some had brought chairs or rugs to sit on.  Men and women smiled and nodded at them as they drew close.  Gabrielle smiled back, surprised at how friendly they were.  She caught the eye of Najara herself sitting on the edge of the ring, right down in the dirt with the rest of them. Jett was at her side; he spoke to Najara and gestured in their direction.  The Crusader looked over at them, caught Gabrielle’s eye, and gave a friendly inviting nod at the two of them. 

 

“Come on,” Gabrielle said.  She gripped Caesar’s arm. He pulled away from her in protest, but Gabrielle glared at him.  “Come _on._ We’re going to talk to her anyway tonight.  _Move._ ”  She dragged him over to take her place by the Crusader, settling to the ground.  Najara and Jett welcomed her with warm smiles.

 

“I’m glad you decided to join us for circle, Gabrielle, Caesar,” Najara said courteously, nodding toward Gabrielle’s companion.  Caesar had taken a seat on the opposite side of Gabrielle from Najara and was watching her warily.  “Tara’s performances are always worth seeing.  Will we see you later for dinner as well?  I’m still interested in hearing about Xena’s last moments.”

 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Gabrielle responded, smiling.  Caesar looked ill at the thought, but Gabrielle told herself she’d drag him if he wouldn’t come on his own.  Najara and Jett nodded their assents, and then turned their attention to the open space before them.

 

Off to the side, Gabrielle could see a couple of male drummers sitting, striking drums shaped like hourglasses with their hands.  Another man sat behind them, whistling on a flute.  In the center of the ring Tara was dancing.

 

Gabrielle was impressed by what she saw.  The dark-haired healer had laid off her drab apprentice’s clothing, switching it for a long, voluminous skirt of many colors that swirled with her movements and a bright blue top that revealed her midsection and cleavage.  Draped over the skirt was either a shawl or a belt festooned with hundreds of silver coins, jingling and shimmering with her every movement.  More coins were woven into her long dark hair and adorned bangles clinging to her bare upper arms.  As she whirled and leapt, her skirt flared out around her and Gabrielle could see that there were still more coins attached to bracelets around her ankles, above bare feet.  The bright, sharp jingling of the coins punctuated her movements and added counterpoint to the pounding of the drums and the whistling of the flute.  She raised her hands over her head and began to strike her thumbs and middle fingers together rapidly in time to the beat, and Gabrielle heard a clear ringing sound above the drums, flute and coins.

 

 _Zils,_ Gabrielle thought.  _Finger cymbals._   She recognized the style of dancing from her days at the Bardic Academy; it was a style common to the region of Africa and Arabia, practiced mainly by women.  Even though her knowledge of this style of dance was limited, Gabrielle knew enough to tell that Tara had had some serious training; she danced even better than some of the instructors at the academy.  _Interesting.  I wonder where she learned that…_

 

But training couldn’t account for the wild enthusiasm she saw in Tara’s sparkling black eyes, the grin of sheer delight on her face as she leapt and gyrated in time to the pounding of the drums, or made the zils ring out above her head, clear and bright.  The healer was clearly doing something she loved, and that brought her joy—doing it with an exuberance and ease that spoke of a profound inborn talent.  The rest of the camp was urging her on, taking up the pulsing beat of the drums and clapping it out, men and women cheering her on, calling and responding to each other across the ring.  Good-natured shouts of _“Go, Tara!”_ and _“You go, girl!”_ rang out above the beat; the audience was having as much fun watching Tara having fun as she herself was.  Even Najara and Jett were clapping.  The drums and Tara’s clear enjoyment of what she was doing were infectious; Gabrielle could feel her feet twitching in time to the rhythm.  That surprised her; she hadn’t been much of a dancer at the Academy.  Now, however….

 

Just as she was thinking that, Tara came whirling across the dirt clearing toward her end of the ring, her long braids swinging out behind her with the speed of her movements, and her eyes found Gabrielle.  Her eyes lit further, and she came swaying toward Gabrielle, a bright smile of invitation on her face.  She spread her arms wide and held her hands out to Gabrielle.

 

“Tara, no, I can’t—“ Gabrielle started to demur.

 

“Come on!” Tara appealed, taking Gabrielle’s hands and pulling on her pleadingly.  Gabrielle shot an apprehensive glance over at Najara, wondering what She of the _Djinn_ would think.  Najara gave a slight nod, smiling warmly.   _What the hell,_ Gabrielle thought with a shrug, and gave in; she let Tara pull her to her feet.

 

Tara drew her to the center of the ring, swaying in time to the music, and Gabrielle followed as best she could.  Cheers erupted as she and Tara took the center stage, and the two of them stood facing each other for a moment, smiling.  Tara waved to the drummers, and they struck up a new beat.

 

Gabrielle had received some training in dance at the academy; it was in a style of dancing very different from Tara’s, but she had always enjoyed her lessons.  As Tara swayed and whirled and spun, Gabrielle planted her hands on her hips and began to step quickly, rapidly and with a decided emphasis, heel to toe.  If she had been wearing the correct shoes, she would have made her own rhythm to dance to, but her steps were lost on the dirt underneath her.  It didn’t matter; the beat of her movements quickly became apparent.  The watchers began to clap in time to the music of the drummers and the flutes as she and Tara danced, a sharp electric rhythm that lent Gabrielle energy.  She was surprised at how easily it all came back to her, and how much sheer fun she was having, dancing like this; Tara’s bright look showed that she was having just as much fun.

 

The two of them started out dancing separately, but after a few moments, she and Tara circled back to face each other, improvising, working with each other, finding each other’s styles, and weaving them together, imitating each other’s moves in turn.  The challenge of playing off of Tara’s smooth undulations exhilarated her; she could tell from the calls of approval that the audience was thoroughly enjoying the performance.  She and Tara reached out and clasped hands, circling around the space between them; Tara’s wide eyes sparkled with the same exhilaration that Gabrielle herself was feeling.

 

Hands joined, the two of them promenaded around the perimeter of the ring once, twice and a third time.  Gabrielle could hear Tara giggling, and she was laughing as well; she couldn’t remember when she’d enjoyed herself so much.  _Surely not since  before Xena conquered Athens…._   As they drew near to the place where Najara sat for the third time, Tara looked over at Gabrielle.  Their eyes met, and Gabrielle could see that they shared their thoughts.

 

“You want to?”

 

“You think we should?”

 

“Let’s!”  Tara said, grinning, and dropped Gabrielle’s hands.  Together, the two of them approached the Crusader.  Tara’s bright smile did not dim, as together they reached out and took She of the _Djinn_ by either arm.

 

Najara’s eyes widened in surprise at their approach, and Gabrielle could see that her tanned face flushed to a deeper bronze.  If Tara hadn’t been with her, she would never have dared to approach the formidable Crusader in this way; but between her partner and the excitement of the dance, it left her emboldened.  So did the cheering.  Though the cheers had been loud for her and Tara, the audience erupted into an enthusiastic _roar_ as they tugged at Najara’s arms.

 

Embarrassed, Najara tried to demur.  “No, really, I—“ she protested, pulling back from them and ducking her head.  The sight of the awe-inspiring Crusader behaving so bashfully tickled Gabrielle, and she resumed her attempts to draw her up.

 

Gabrielle glanced at Tara and the two of them smiled at each other.  “Come on!”  Tara pleaded, and, emboldened by the young healer’s courage, Gabrielle added, “Yeah, come on!”

 

“ _No,_ really.  Really, I can’t—“

 

The assembled watchers had left off cheering and begun to chant now.  _“Na-ja-ra!  Na-ja-ra!  Na-ja-ra!  Na-ja-ra!”_

 

“You hear?”  Tara pleaded.  “They’re calling for you!  You can’t let them down!”

 

“Please?” Gabrielle added, surprised at her daring.

 

“Well—“  Najara glanced over at Jett, beside her.  Jett nodded, smiling slightly.  “All right,” she acquiesced at last.  She let herself be pulled to her feet, shook off Tara’s and Gabrielle’s grip, and walked to the center of the ring.  Tara and Gabrielle dropped down to the ground in the space she had just vacated, watching her eagerly.

 

“Tara, you dance _wonderfully_ ,” Gabrielle told the apprentice healer as Najara spoke briefly to the drummers.  “Where did you learn to dance like that?”

 

The healer’s face shadowed.  She dropped her gaze.  “I used to hate dancing,” she said quietly.  Something in her manner forbade further questioning.  Gabrielle bit her lip.

 

Najara had finished speaking to the drummers, and now stepped to the center of the ring.  Her presence was such that all conversation ceased, all motion stilled, all eyes went to her as she did so.  She immediately commanded the attention.  The tall blonde warrior closed her eyes and lowered her head.  She drew a long breath, then in one motion drew her sword from its sheath.  She stood, as still as a marble statue, in the center of the silence.

 

Then—simultaneously with the drummers’ first strikes on their hide drums—the Crusader moved.

 

She moved slowly at first, stepping to the four directions, north, south, east and west, placing each foot deliberately and with care, without opening her eyes. She crossed her tracks, tracing and retracing her steps, always somehow stepping in the exact same footprints she had laid down earlier.  Gabrielle recognized the pattern as a tribal sword-dance pattern performed by some of the clans in Syria; some of the bards who had journeyed there had demonstrated this dance when they returned to the academy.  It wasn’t a dance, Gabrielle remembered them saying, so much as a training exercise for young warriors.  Najara laid the entire pattern down without once opening her eyes.

 

The Crusader picked up speed, stepping faster and faster, beginning to swing her sword in her hand, a flashing arc of gleaming steel that sent bright darts of light back at the audience around her.  Faster she moved, faster, and now she was _leaping_ from one part of the pattern to the next, her sword whirling in a blinding arc over her head, to her left, to her right, under her feet as she jumped.  Even though her eyes were closed, she never faltered or hesitated.  Several times the watching audience gasped as it looked certain that she would harm herself, but always the deadly, gleaming arc of blade sheered just shy of skin and flesh.  Faster and faster the blade swung, until it was nothing more than a blurring disc of metal; Gabrielle could hear the air sing as the sword cut through it.  Najara’s leaps became higher, wilder, faster, yet still powered by the throbbing beat of the drums, still not straying so much as a hairsbreadth outside the pattern.  As she leapt, Gabrielle began to sense a wildness, even a _fury_ in the movements, that was nevertheless ruthlessly contained and crushed by the strict and rigid pattern She of the _Djinn_ had laid down for herself; no hint of this violence—if it were even there and not simply a product of Gabrielle’s imagination—showed on her smooth face, as serene as that of a graven image. The assembled crowd was clapping sharply along with the drums, cheering the Crusader on so loudly that Gabrielle feared she would be distracted and stumble fatally, yet despite the frenzy of the dance, She of the _Djinn_ never faltered.  Gabrielle’s heart was in her throat.  She had forgotten to breathe, forgotten Tara and Jett and Caesar beside her, forgotten her surroundings, forgotten everything.  It seemed as if any moment, Najara would stumble, _must_ stumble, and then that brilliant blade would be red with blood—and yet at the same time, how _could_ she?  Yet surely, not even _she_ could keep this up….

 

It ended simply.  Najara’s leaps grew higher and wilder until in a bound, she pushed off from the very center of the pattern into a leap so high she seemed almost to soar above the crowd.  Hanging at the apogee of her jump, her head came up.  Her eyes opened, and as she started her descent, she hurled her sword the length of the open space.  Gabrielle gasped and flinched back as the sword thwacked point-first into the dirt less than three yards from her.  As the Crusader struck the ground again, she immediately leapt forward into a double-somersault that carried her the length of the ring, and vaulted over the sword.  Snatching it out of the ground while she was actually in the air, she struck the ground again, and in the same movement raised the sword high over her head, flashing the sun brilliantly off the gleaming blade.  For a long moment, Najara held that posture, her pale blue eyes fixed on the sky overhead—from this angle, she would have been looking directly into the sun, and almost blinded, but she did not so much as blink.  The drummers had concluded with her final vault, and an almost unearthly silence hung over the clearing; no one so much as breathed, so awed were they by what they had just seen….

 

Then Najara sheathed her sword. The applause that followed was deafening. Gabrielle had never heard anything like it. She was applauding too, striking her hands together so hard that they stung, cheering at the top of her lungs. “Isn’t she great?” Tara cried, her black eyes wide and sparkling. “She’s incredible!”  Najara only bowed her head humbly underneath the accolades of the cheering crowd, standing with her spine as straight and upright as if she were a marble column.

 

Against the backdrop of cheering, Gabrielle glanced over at Caesar.  His jaw was clenched, his shoulders stiff and rigid, and he was staring at Najara with that same strange, almost fearful look.  “Are you all right?” Gabrielle asked him.

 

He turned that wide-eyed look on her.  It seemed to take him a moment to figure out what she had said.  “Xena could have done that too.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

The evening air was starting to cool off as Gabrielle made her way back to Najara’s command tent, with Caesar at her side.  The sun had sunk so low it was touching the horizon, and shadows stretched long across the ground.  The mood of the detachment was relaxed and peaceful, sleepy, almost; Gabrielle couldn’t help but be struck by the contrast between this camp and Xena’s camp.  Xena’s camp—the little she had seen of it—had been full of rough, crude-looking men who shouted and cursed and fought with each other constantly, more like a pack of dogs than an army.  Najara’s camp, in contrast, was quiet, orderly; not just men, but women as well—not all of them soldiers—and even a few children were to be seen, sitting outside of low tents at fires, talking quietly.  Music drifted from outside of some of the tents, and though there were soldiers crouched in the dirt playing dice games, the losers accepted their losses with more or less good grace.  In Xena’s camp, Gabrielle had seen men killed over such games.  The peaceful atmosphere impressed her a great deal.

 

Caesar was balking as she gripped him firmly by the arm and drew him after her through the camp; he did not want to have dinner with Najara.  “Let go of me,” he demanded, yanking away from her hard; Gabrielle kept her grip determinedly.  “I’m—I’m going back to the village.  To the tavern.  Let me go, you stupid little—“  Though phrased with the arrogance to which she had grown accustomed from him, his demands lacked strength and force; they sounded whining, childish, not much like his earlier imperious dictates.

 

“No you aren’t,” Gabrielle responded grimly.  “We’re going to see Najara.  To tell her about Xena’s death like she asked us to.”

 

Caesar looked away, his jawline tight.  “ _You_ tell her,” he said with dull resentment.  “Leave me out of it.”

 

“You know more about Xena than I do,” Gabrielle said relentlessly.  “You have to come in case there’s something else Najara needs to know.”  Not in a million years would she have said what she really thought—that Najara’s intensity intimidated and fascinated her both, and that she wanted him along so that she would not have to face the awesome force that was She of the _Djinn_ alone.  “Come on,” she repeated, dragging him.

 

“She doesn’t _need_ to know _anything,_ ” Caesar said peevishly.  “Xena’s _dead_.  What could she possibly need to know?”

 

Gabrielle turned and looked at him, surprised by the level of bitterness in his voice.  His face was turned away from her, as he looked at the treeline, and she could not see his expression.  Honestly incredulous, she asked him, “Come on, don’t _you_ want to talk to her, after seeing that dance?  I mean, you have to admit that was pretty impressive.”

 

He flicked a glance back at her.  “Xena could have done the same thing,” he said again.

 

“Well, Xena’s not here,” Gabrielle said sharply.  “Najara is.  Come on.”

 

Caesar looked over at her now, a long, sullen gaze. “Can’t you leave me alone?”

 

It was the same question he had asked earlier, and again, Gabrielle wasn’t sure he was simply talking about the present situation.  “No,” she said sharply.  “Come on.”

 

He stared at her some more.  “I hate you,” he said dully.

 

“Good.  The feeling’s mutual,” Gabrielle shot back.  She hadn’t meant to say it; it just slipped out.  She thought about taking it back, but he didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

 

She hauled him after her, over his objections, toward the command tent.  As they passed the lines of prisoners chained up and waiting trial, Gabrielle glanced down it, and her eyes found Stallonus at the end.  She caught his eye across the distance between them.  He looked back at her, and she indicated the tent and flashed him an encouraging smile.  It did her heart good to see him smile back.

 

[*]

 

When they reached the command tent, the meal was already laid out.  There was no table, Gabrielle saw; neither were there chairs, but a long white cloth was laid out in the center of the tent, with dishes placed on it.  Brightly-colored silk and satin cushions were placed all around it, and the floor was covered with intricately decorated woven rugs.  Gabrielle had heard the Romans had reclined on couches to eat, and she and her family had taken their dinners on stools around a kitchen table; this was a style of dining that she hadn’t seen before.  The dishes were handsome, but not luxurious; pewter and earthenware bowls held olives, cheese and figs; meatballs in sour cream; squares of flat bread surrounding a deep bowl full of hummus, and chicken stuffed with boiled eggs and rice.  The food was plentiful but simple.  Najara was sitting crosslegged at one end of the long white cloth, with Jett at her right hand, as servants moved around her to set out additional dishes.  Even sitting casually on the ground, the Crusader was riveting, Gabrielle thought.  One young woman set down a very ornate metal pot of a kind Gabrielle had never seen before; it rested on a silver tray and had a long spout attached to it.  On the tray around it were four small glass cups. 

 

“Welcome,” Najara said politely as Gabrielle settled hesitantly to the ground at the edge of the white cloth.  At her tugging, Caesar clumsily dropped down beside her, again, keeping her between himself and She of the _Djinn._   “I’m pleased to see you decided to come.  A meal shared with friends is always a pleasure.  I hope you aren’t offended by the plainness of the food I have to offer,” she continued, gesturing to the dishes set before her, “but I am accustomed to dining simply.” 

 

“Oh, that’s fine,” Gabrielle assured her.  “This looks wonderful.”

 

Najara smiled.  “I’m glad,” she said, seeming honestly pleased.  She leaned forward to dip her hands in a silver bowl filled with water; dried rose petals floated on the surface.  Gabrielle saw a similar bowl had been set out for herself and Caesar.  At Najara’s warm smile, Gabrielle leaned forward to do the same.  Caesar did not; he was sitting stiffly beside her, watching the Crusader fixedly.

 

Najara bowed her head briefly, as did Jett.  “In the name of the Light,” she murmured, and Gabrielle hastened to bow her head as well out of respect.  Najara straightened after a moment, and invited Gabrielle, “Please, go first.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“You are a guest.  It would be an honor to me.”

 

“Well…If you insist.”  Gabrielle hesitantly reached out and plucked an olive out of the nearest dish.  Najara nodded her approval.  She picked up the strange spouted pot and poured out of it into the small glass cups; a steaming brownish liquid came out.  Najara presented the cups to Gabrielle, who regarded hers dubiously, and Caesar, who stared blankly at her.  Gabrielle dug her elbow into his ribs, and he took the cup, almost snatching it as if the Crusader’s hand were a poisonous serpent.  Najara politely didn’t seem to notice.

 

“I apologize for serving tea instead of wine,” she told Caesar.  _Tea?_ Gabrielle wondered, inspecting her glass.  _What’s tea?_   “I understand that you Romans are fond of wine.  However, I don’t drink.”  Caesar looked as if he hadn’t even heard her, and Gabrielle hastened to cover the breach.

 

“This is fine,” she assured Najara, and quickly took a sip from the cup.  The liquid was hot, strange-tasting, and very, very sweet.  After a moment to get used to it, Gabrielle decided she liked it.

 

“You were one of Crassus’s friends, is that correct?” Najara continued, addressing herself to Caesar.  Caesar was staring at her with wide eyes; he made no answer.  “I’m sure you already know this—Jett says he told you already, isn’t that right?”

 

“I did,” Jett nodded, taking a piece of cheese.

 

“—but you have the right to hear it from me as well.  I am the one responsible for his death.  I was forced to execute Crassus, a few years ago,” she said solemnly. 

 

Caesar was silent. 

 

“He had slaughtered the village of Gardenias,” she explained gently, “crucified them all down to the last man, woman and child; and when I gave him the opportunity, he would not accept the Light—very unusual.  I think,” she said thoughtfully, “he was counting on someone to come to his rescue; either that, or he could not humble himself enough to do so.  It is to my deepest regret that I was forced to kill your friend,” Najara continued, “and if there is anything I can do—“

 

“He was not my friend,” Caesar said tensely.  “I don’t want anything from you.”

 

 “Speaking of friends,” Gabrielle spoke up, emboldened, “there’s a friend of mine.  In among your group of captives.”

 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Najara said with genuine regret.

 

“He’s a bard named Stallonus; I know him from the bardic academy, before it was destroyed.  He’s an innocent soul, and wouldn’t hurt a fly.  He should be released.  He doesn’t deserve to be included with the rest of those criminals.”

 

Najara listened politely to Gabrielle as she spoke, then replied, “If he accepts the Light, he will be.”

 

 _If he accepts…._   Gabrielle frowned.  “Whether he accepts the Light or not, he should be released,” she insisted, holding her ground.  “He’s a good person.  He would never hurt anyone—“

 

“If he is a good person,” Najara said calmly, “then he will accept the Light.  He has only to accept the Light and swear to keep to its ways ever afterward, to be released.”

 

“But what does accepting the Light have to do with whether or not you release him?” Gabrielle countered.  “He says his family has always worshiped Isis—“

 

“Then he can be the first to come to the Light,” Najara replied.  “He has three days worth of time in which to make his decision.  He may find it easier to do so with time.”

 

“But Najara—“  Gabrielle began.

 

Najara stopped.  She put down her cup of tea and fixed Gabrielle with a look.  Her face held its usual, courteous expression, but those pale eyes fell on Gabrielle like weight.  Suddenly the young bard was aware that she was sitting in the presence of one of the three most formidable warlords in the world.  “ _Gabrielle.”_   The Crusader’s voice was still civil, but firm.  “I have told you my answer.  If he accepts the Light, he will be released.  I’m sorry, but those are the rules.”  She paused.  Her eyes went briefly distant, as if she were listening to some internal voice; after a moment, their focus cleared and she seemed to come back to herself.  “Besides,” she added, “the _djinn_ say not to trust him.”

 

 _The djinn say not to trust him._   Gabrielle felt her shoulder brush that of Caesar, and only then realized she had been drawing back from She of the _Djinn,_ trying to retreat from that overpowering presence.  She swallowed hard, trying to think of another line of persuasion, sensing it would be useless—the Crusader had delivered her last words with the air of someone laying down the law.  There had to be something she could say, something she could do….

 

Her glance fell on Jett. Jett caught her eye and shook his head slightly, mouthing what looked like, _No._    Gabrielle drew a breath, then suddenly shoved the matter out of her head, to be dealt with later.  It didn’t look like she was going to get anywhere right this moment, and pressing on with the matter seemed likely to irritate Najara.  _I still have time,_ she thought to herself.  Maybe Jett would know something to do.  In the meantime, antagonizing Najara further wasn’t likely to be immediately helpful.  Bowing to necessity, Gabrielle decided to let the matter drop for now, to be taken back up at a more advantageous moment.

 

“So,” Najara said, effortlessly taking control of the situation, “tell me, if you don’t mind, about Xena’s death?”

 

Gabrielle quickly sketched the story; it was still a very affecting memory for her, and she went into it only briefly. She would have been willing to provide more details, if Najara had asked, but the Crusader seemed to sense Gabrielle’s discomfort, and politely accepted the account she gave her. As she spoke, it seemed as if she were living it again—seeing the insanity of Callisto, marveling at the sight of the Dark Conqueror and the Bright Warrior doing battle, hearing the cries of Callisto’s men as they swept the encampment. That had been something to see, she thought to herself. It had been clear when they fought that nothing existed for each of them outside the other; the savage joy on Xena’s face, the manic glee in Callisto’s brown eyes, the way they struck, harder and harder, until it seemed certain that their weapons would shatter in their hands.

 

“She died to save me,” Gabrielle said quietly.  She was staring down at a candied fig in her hands, taken from a golden bowl.  “Callisto—she saw me—“  She had been standing right by the throne, actually, right next to Caesar, as she now remembered.  “She aimed a blow at me…..Xena, she—“  She remembered the look on Xena’s face, the look of raw fear; she had never thought to see such a look on the face of she who was the Daughter of War.  “She took the stroke meant for me.  She died….”  She had collapsed.  Gabrielle had hurried to catch her; Xena had been too heavy, and she had almost dropped her….but then Callisto had come, taking Xena in her arms tenderly, sharing the burden, looking at the slain Destroyer of Nations with stricken eyes.  _She said I was her soulmate,_ Gabrielle remembered.  _That she had been told by a priestess that I was her soulmate._  Maybe it was even true.  Gabrielle had certainly never met anyone like Xena before….

 

“She died,” Gabrielle finished simply, and looked down at her hands.  Najara was silent for a moment, out of respect.

 

“The _djinn_ told me that she was dead,”  She of the _Djinn_ murmured after a moment, “but not what happened.  Thank you for telling me,” she said quietly.  Gabrielle simply nodded.  She had said nothing of the final promise Xena had extracted from Callisto, or that Xena had said Gabrielle was her soulmate; Najara looked almost as if she already knew.  Caesar’s hands were clenched into fists at his side; he had said nothing all during Gabrielle’s tale, but simply sat there, pale and silent and tense.  She remembered that he had not liked the fact that Xena had made Callisto swear to her protection, but not to his.

 

She drew a breath, trying to shake off the grips of memory; what Najara had just said struck a chord in her, and brought a question to mind.  “You mentioned the _djinn,_ ” she said, turning her attention back to the Crusader.   “If you don’t mind my asking….”

 

“What about them?” Najara asked.

 

“Do you….”  She paused, not sure what to ask, somehow nervous to satisfy her curiosity.  “Did you always hear them?  When did you first hear them—if you don’t mind talking about it that is,” she faltered.  “I’m just—I’m not sure what they are, and I don’t want to offend you with my questions—“

 

Najara smiled warmly.  “No, not at all.  I don’t mind talking about them,” she said.  “I’m not sure what they are either; just that they come to me from time to time.  They always seem to tell me things I need to know.”

 

“Did they tell you to become the Crusader?” Gabrielle asked, trying to feel her way; it was possible, she thought, that asking Najara about her background could lead to something that could help her with Stallonus.  At Najara’s questioning expression, she continued, “I hope—I mean, if you would rather not discuss it it’s all right, but….I’m a bard, and bards love stories, and the story of the origins of the Crusader would certainly be one of great interest.”

 

“Well, I don’t know that it’s all _that_ interesting a story,” Najara said.  “If you want to hear it, I’ll tell you.”  She drew a breath then, and a shadow crossed her face.  Gabrielle quailed a bit at the sight of that shadow, but pressed on nevertheless.

 

“Please,” she said, insisting.  “After all, I told you a story….it’s only fair that you tell me one in return.”

 

Najara glanced at Jett, who looked at Gabrielle and Caesar.  Caesar had not moved during this whole conversation, and was sitting tense and rigid beside her; he had contributed only monosyllables to Gabrielle’s account of Xena’s death.  Jett looked back at Najara and nodded.

 

“Very well,” the Crusader said.  “You asked if I could always hear the _djinn_ ,” she began, sitting back with one foot crossed over the other.

 

“Does it begin with the _djinn?_ ”

 

“In a way,” Najara responded.  “I could always hear the _djinn_ , from the time when I was a little girl growing up in my home village in Syria.  In fact for a long time I didn’t know that others _couldn’t_ hear them; it just seemed so natural to me that I thought everyone could hear them too.  Sometimes I got in trouble as a girl,” she said with a reminiscent smile, “because the _djinn_ would tell me things I had no way of knowing otherwise, and then people would say I was lying, or that I had been sneaking around where I shouldn’t have been.  But after a while, the village recognized that the _djinn_ spoke to me, and spoke truly, and began to use the information I told them to help themselves.”

 

“It sounds like it could have been a huge asset,” Gabrielle murmured.

 

Najara didn’t respond right away.  That shadow crossed her face again.  After a moment, she rallied and continued.  “It was,” she agreed.  “It often was.  For instance, the _djinn_ would sometimes tell me if there was going to be a flood or a drought, and the villagers would be able to prepare for it.  Once when some of my family’s goats got lost up in the hills, the _djinn_ led me right to them, and I was able to bring them back where my father and my brothers and sisters had been searching for hours without finding anything.  They told me how to save my mother’s life when she was taken ill, and often they helped our village to defend its flocks against raids from the neighboring villages.  They were…they told me a lot,” she said, with a small, almost awkward smile.

 

“Did they teach you how to fight?”

 

“No,” she said, smiling again.  “My family raised goats, you see.  When I was old enough, I was sent out to guard the flocks with my brothers and sisters against the attacks of wolves or wildcats, or sometimes other villages.  We all had to know how to use weapons, in order to defend our flocks well.  My siblings and I were very determined,” she continued.  “Our family never lost a single goat.  We were the only family in the village who never did.”  Najara smiled as she spoke, but again, there was a strange shadow crossing her face; she shifted slightly. 

 

Gabrielle could see her as she must have been at that age:  a tall, lanky teenager, still growing into her height and strength, with hands and feet out of proportion to the rest of her body; almost gawky and slightly ungainly, with wide and eager eyes; no hint as yet of the awesome force that she would become.

 

“For a long time,” Najara was continuing, “I thought the _djinn_ were sent by Calliope; she was the patron goddess of our village, and I believed that she had given me the _djinn_ for the purpose of protecting our home and family.  It wasn’t until I was…oh, about seventeen or eighteen….that I learned differently.

 

“In my eighteenth year, I think it was,” she murmured, her eyes going distant.  “Jett, did I ever tell you?” she asked him.  “Do you remember?”

 

“I think you said it was when you were seventeen, actually,” the assassin supplied quietly.  He was watching Najara carefully.

 

“Yes, it must have been when I was seventeen,” the Crusader said thoughtfully.  “Because tales of the warlord Krykus first started reaching our region when I was around fifteen….”

 

“Krykus,” Gabrielle repeated, frowning.  She had heard the name but it took her a moment to place it; then she had it.  Krykus was one of Najara’s most trusted lieutenants.

 

“The man known as the Crusader’s Hand?” she asked, looking up at Najara eagerly.

 

The Crusader smiled briefly.  Even seated casually at the head of the dining cloth, she drew the eye, Gabrielle found herself thinking peripherally; her charisma was that strong.  “Yes,” she agreed.  “But that was later.  When he first came to our region, we knew nothing about him, except that he had come from the south.  He got his start in Egypt, on the Upper Nile, but Cleopatra’s forces still controlled Egypt at that time and they drove him out.  It’s different now, of course,” She of the _Djinn_ added parenthetically.  “But back then, Cleopatra still held sway; Krykus was driven out and he fled north to Syria.

 

“Our village knew none of this information at the time, of course,” Najara added, smiling again.  “We were…very sheltered; we knew little of what happened outside our immediate area. When rumors started drifting in that there was a warlord named Krykus, demanding tribute from the settlements along our river, our elders simply thought that if we ignored him, he would go away.  Our village was a small one with nothing of any interest for anyone; They thought that he would not want anything from us or our neighbors.  Our town had always been under the protection of Calliope, since the days of our earliest founding.  She had been good to us, taken very good care of us, and we trusted her,” she said.  “We trusted that she would continue to do so; we made offerings and sacrifices to her, and hoped that that would settle the matter.”

 

The Crusader paused there, seeming lost in thought, looking back through time.  Her pale eyes were distant.  The shadow that had crossed her face returned, more strongly; her presence was such that the interior of the tent almost seemed dimmer.  Gabrielle shivered and quickly gulped some more of the hot tea.  Jett was watching Najara with open sympathy in his face; Gabrielle glanced over at Caesar.  He was regarding She of the _Djinn_ as distrustfully as if she were a poisonous snake.

 

“The _djinn_ never warned me,” Najara said in a quiet voice.  “I was very angry at them,” she admitted.  No hint of anger was on her face or in her voice.  “I was angry at them for a long time after that.  It was hard for me to forgive them.  Eventually I came to realize that it was all for the best, but….”  She curved her hands around her own tea glass. 

 

She spoke revealing almost no emotion, Gabrielle saw, watching her; the Crusader’s face was calm, composed, serene as that of a marble statue.  Something about that calm gave Gabrielle chills.

 

Najara continued speaking, her head bowed, her eyes lowered as if in deep thought.  She didn’t seem to be talking to Gabrielle so much as reminiscing to herself.  Her hands were turning her own tea glass idly; other than that, she sat completely motionless, perfectly still, almost tranquil in repose.

 

“It was during the spring of my seventeenth year.  Krykus’s men came at night,” she said, speaking as matter-of-factly as if she had been discussing the weather.  “They came at night, hundreds of them, with torches and on horseback.  We rushed to arms as soon as we heard them coming; I took my sword down from the wall and ran to join my cousins—but there were too many of them.  Just too many.  They were burning everything, striking everywhere and at everyone.  I tried to fight, but I failed,” she said with perfect composure.  “I failed to defend my home.”

 

Gabrielle bit her lip, thinking of Najara’s face in the moonlight, seeing the image of a young seventeen-year-old—two years younger than she herself—rushing to arms in the dead of night as flames and smoke reached into the sky.

 

“I was struck on the head,” Najara continued, “and knocked to the ground.  The men must have thought I was dead, because they left me where I fell.  I could see and hear what was going on around me, but it all seemed very distant from me, and I didn’t have the strength to move.  Everything was hazy.  The people of my village had fled to the one place they thought would be safe—the temple of Calliope.  They fled to her, imploring her protection.  But Calliope did not protect them,” she said almost gently.  “The last thing I remembered seeing before I passed out….Krykus’s men were firing the temple.”  She paused.  “When I woke, all was ashes.”

 

Again, Najara fell silent, lost in thought.  Her face was as flawless as if she were relating a tragedy that had happened to a stranger in a far-off land; touched, perhaps, with a tinge of gentle sorrow, but no more than that.  There was something…almost unearthly….about that calm, Gabrielle thought, and shivered again.

 

“When I came to the next morning,” the Crusader resumed her tale, “the men were gone.  The village was in ruin; there was nothing left alive, not even a dog.  I made my way to what remained of Calliope’s temple.  It was a charnel house.  I knelt in the ashes,” she said quietly, “among the burned bones of my people, and….”  Now she paused.  The tiniest hint of a frown marred her stillness.  “I prayed for Calliope to take it all back, to bring them back, to undo the consequences of my failure. I offered my life in trade, if that was what it would take, as long as she would simply bring back my village and my family and my people.  I prayed with all my strength, but Calliope did not answer.” 

 

Gabrielle bit her lip, her heart bleeding; it seemed she could see the tear-streaked face of that gangling, awkward girl, half-mad with pain and grief, kneeling in the burned-out ruins and reaching out desperately to a higher power for any help, any hope.  She could not imagine what it must be like to pray for something that hard, and to have her prayers unheeded. Najara showed no pain at all, not so much as a flicker; perhaps a trace of that gentle sorrow, but nothing more.  She spoke with perfect serenity.  “Calliope did not answer, and after a long time, I realized it was because she would not answer.  The gods did not hear my prayers.”

 

“The gods are dead,” Caesar muttered tightly beside Gabrielle.  She glanced over at him, startled; his lips were pressed tightly together and he was pale and sweating.  His hands were clenched.  He would not meet her gaze.

 

Najara nodded.  “Yes,” she said tranquilly.  “That was the conclusion that I came to as well.  That the gods were dead.  It was either that….or else that they simply did not care.  They did not care,” she repeated, her eyes distant.  Gabrielle heard something in her voice as she spoke that, something so deeply buried that Gabrielle could not tell what it was; she doubted Najara even knew it was there.  All traces of whatever that thing was were gone when she continued.  “I would prefer to believe that they were dead,” Najara said calmly.  “I knelt in that place of death for I don’t know how long, begging Calliope to help me.  When I finally realized that the gods would not answer, I rose, and went out from that place.  I took what food I could find from the ruins, and fled, west into the desert, to where Krykus’s men could not reach me if they returned.

 

“I was in the desert for…days,” she said thoughtfully.  “I don’t remember how long exactly.  I knew enough of the desert to be able to find water and some food; I slept as much as I could during the day and moved only at night.  I think….I don’t remember that period very well,” she said, “but I think it must have been at least three days, maybe more.  It was on the evening of the third day,” she said quietly, “that the _djinn_ came to me.  I had taken shelter in the ruins of an abandoned temple.  The roof had fallen in, and the stars were very close.  If you’ve ever been out in the desert at night, you know how close the stars seem, how near….it seemed almost as if the stars were speaking to me.”  Her voice was soft.  A sort of almost childlike innocence had come to her face.  Gabrielle stared to see it, on the features of such an awe-inspiring woman.

 

“As I huddled in the ruins of that ancient temple to some nameless god, the _djinn_ spoke,” Najara continued.  “They had not spoken since the attack.  They came to me now, and said…they said….”

 

She paused.  Memory stole over her face again, and again, Gabrielle could see the child she had been, face perfect and still under a sky studded with brilliant jewels, as this awkward girl hovered on the cusp of embracing her destiny. 

 

“They said, _You have seen.  Now you understand.  The old gods will not help you.  The old gods do not hear.  You are the only one who can do what must be done.  Take up the sword.  It is your purpose.  It is the reason for your birth.  It is the reason for all that has transpired.  You are the one who will bring the Light._

 

“I couldn’t believe it, of course.  I told the _djinn_ that they must be wrong.  ‘You couldn’t possibly want me,’ I told them.  Had they not seen how I had failed?  How completely unworthy I was?  I told them I didn’t deserve it, that they should choose someone else besides me, but they simply kept repeating that I was the one who could do what must be done. They said that a very dark time was coming to the world, war and chaos and terror, and that I had been born to take up the sword, and bring the Light.  The _djinn_ said if I chose this way, I could expect nothing more from this path than struggle and weariness and the embrace of the Light at the end, yet if I had the courage, I could know that I was walking the path that had been laid out for me since my birth; that I was bringing good to the world, and holding back the dark.

 

“What else could I do?”  Najara turned those pale eyes on Gabrielle, and Gabrielle swallowed, suddenly feeling as if that awesome woman were asking her directly.  “I took up the sword.  I accepted my purpose.

 

“That was how it began.  I didn’t understand all of it until a few months later, when Krykus’s army had been defeated,” she continued.  “After I captured him, I wanted to kill him, to slaughter them all for what they had done to my village, and the neighboring villages of the region.”  Najara admitted this calmly, as if she were commenting on the weather.  “But the _djinn_ stayed my hand.  They told me what to say and what to do; to present him with the choice, and to give him three days to decide.  He accepted the Light,” she said, “and has been completely faithful ever since.  Now Krykus is one of my most trusted advisors; in fact, I have even left him in charge of the main army while I brought the detachment up north.

 

“That’s why I can’t free your friend, Gabrielle,” she said, looking at the bard with sympathy, and suddenly Gabrielle knew that Najara knew exactly why she had asked about her origins, and what she was thinking.  It was a very eerie feeling; she swallowed.  “If it were up to me, I would gladly permit him to go free, but it _isn’t._   I don’t make the rules,” she said, with a trace of regret.  “The _djinn_ are the ones who decreed that those I capture must be brought to the Light, not I. It’s not something I can control.”

 

 _Something I can’t control…_   Gabrielle stared at her.  “What if you’re wrong?” 

 

“If I’m wrong?” Najara asked.

 

“I mean—have you ever considered that maybe you _weren’t_ the chosen of the Light?”  At Najara’s look, she was emboldened; She of the _Djinn_ did not seem angry or threatened by Gabrielle’s question, but merely politely interested.  Gabrielle continued, “Look, I’m not saying that you don’t know what the _djinn_ are telling you, but what if…what if the _djinn_ are wrong?  What if—“

 

“That’s never happened,” Najara said at once.  She was stating a fact, no more.  “The _djinn_ have never been wrong.  They are not wrong.  I trust them more than I trust myself,” she said.  “What the _djinn_ say has always been proven correct; they have assisted me more times than I could count.  They may be _silent_ on some matters, but they are not _wrong._ ”  The total assurance with which she spoke closed off any further avenue of debate.  “I know I am the Chosen of the Light because the _djinn_ say I am, and the _djinn_ do not lie.”

 

Gabrielle considered that for a moment, biting her lip.  Seeing that lane foreclosed, she tried a new angle of attack.  “Okay, well, what if the _djinn_ have…what if they have some purpose they’re not telling you about?” Gabrielle asked.  “What if—I mean, have you ever considered that maybe the _djinn_ aren’t….that great?  I mean—“

 

“Yes?”  Again, Najara did not seem angry.  Gabrielle glanced at Jett, checking to see the reaction of Najara’s Blade; Jett nodded at her, and again, Gabrielle was emboldened.

 

“Okay,” she continued, “I mean, what if the _djinn_ weren’t—You say the Light is the cause of good, right?  It seems to me,” she added diplomatically, “that you definitely have a very strong desire to do good in the world—“

 

Again, Gabrielle was tickled—almost in spite of herself—by the spectacle of the fearsome Crusader blushing.  “Well….to the best of my own limited abilities and as I perceive it in my own imperfect way,” she qualified.  “I’m not perfect, Gabrielle.”

 

“But you do seem to have a calling to do good, and although I haven’t seen much of the world, I have seen enough to know that’s a rare gift,” Gabrielle said.  “Just for…for a hypothetical theory’s sake, couldn’t it be possible that the _djinn_ aren’t good?  Suppose the _djinn_ were trying to use you for their own ends?  How would you know?  I mean, would you resist them, or….?”

 

“It’s not my place to question the _djinn_ , Gabrielle,” Najara reproved her gently.  “I simply do as they tell me.  You ask if the _djinn_ are a force for good?  I can assure you, they are.  I’ve seen it.  At the _djinn’s_ instructions and with their power helping me, I have fed the hungry, clothed the poor, and defended the defenseless.  I’ve protected villages from Xena’s and Callisto’s depredations, and helped defend peasants from warlords—as I did here, with you and this village,” she added.  “I know the _djinn_ are good because of what I accomplish for them and what they tell me to do.  I know they are good because they tell me they are, and they do not lie.  But most of all, I know the _djinn_ are a force for good because I know it.”

 

“That’s circular reasoning.”

 

“In this case, it is correct,” Najara said calmly.  “I regret that you cannot also sense it,” she continued politely.  “I would like for everyone to come to know the _djinn_ as I do, and someday, I think they will.  Until that day comes, however, some doubt and suspicion is understandable.”

 

“But….if they’re a force for good—Please,” Gabrielle continued.  “If I may—don’t be offended, but I would like to understand—If they’re a force for good, then why do they make you _kill_ people just because they won’t give up the worship of the old gods?  My friend—his family are devotees of Isis and—“

 

“The old gods don’t hear.” 

 

Gabrielle broke off, taken aback; Najara had not spoken loudly or angrily, but there was something about her tone that made Gabrielle stop and look at her closely.  Again, the Crusader’s face was almost perfectly serene, but there was something in her eyes, in her voice—something so deeply buried that it was almost not present, scarcely recognizable.  It was what had been there earlier, when she and Caesar had agreed that the gods were dead.  Gabrielle shivered, suddenly cold.

 

“They don’t hear,” Najara continued, looking at Gabrielle. “Your friend said they were dead. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t, but it seems clear that they take no interest in the affairs of mortals. If they even existed in the first place,” she added, and her eyes again were distant. “Any worship of them is futile, Gabrielle,” she said, more gently. “They won’t help. They only serve to give mortal men and women false hope. It is to be hoped that mortals will understand that, once they have come to see the Light.”

 

“But if you want them to see the Light, then how come you kill those who don’t?” Gabrielle asked.  There was real anguish in her voice as she asked that; she wasn’t just thinking of Stallonus, but of her own murder of Licinus in the caves.  She knew what blood cost now.  The idea that Najara might waste it, for no better reason that someone chose not to follow the Light—this woman who was in every other way so compelling, so memorable—chilled her.  “Doesn’t it bother you that the _djinn_ , whom you claim are the embodiment of good, tell you to kill them?  How can you claim you’re a force for good when you execute those who disagree with you?”

 

“They have a chance,” Najara responded.  “It is my belief that all human beings have the potential in them to change.  The people whom I execute, Gabrielle,” she added gently, “are those who are guilty.  They are those whom I and my army have apprehended taking up the sword against those who are defenseless.  The _djinn_ do not have me require those whom I defend to convert to the Light; the _djinn_ have told me they will come to the Light in time,” she said with perfect assurance.  “I give those I capture a chance, as the _djinn_ have instructed me.  Every human being deserves a chance to change.  But if they reject the Light, or if they show by their actions that they accepted the Light falsely….well, I can’t be everywhere.  And I cannot continue to allow them to hurt the defenseless.  Since they have demonstrated they will not be sincere once, there is no reason to assume they will do so in the future—have you not heard the saying that the wise man is never bitten twice by the same snake?  I am only a mortal woman.  Perhaps an oracle would be able to see into their souls, or to bind them to the path of the Light, or to enjoin them to go forth and harm no more.  I cannot do any of those things.  Therefore, as the _djinn_ have commanded me, I execute them, to ensure that they will do no further harm to those who do not deserve it.” 

 

Gabrielle bit her lip in thought, troubled.  Najara _sounded_ plausible; she _sounded_ as if she were making sense, but there was something Gabrielle couldn’t put her finger on, something….  Najara waited patiently; Gabrielle could feel the weight of that pale stare, the grip of the Crusader’s charisma.  After a moment, she said, “Okay, I—“  She hesitated, then continued.  “I agree with you that the old gods are—that they—“  She thought of the destruction of Athens, her captivity at Xena’s hands, the sight of Xena and Callisto; thought of the tale of devastation Joxer had told her a month ago, of the anger and betrayal she had heard in Brutus’s voice.  She thought of the burned-out plain of ashes where Rome had once stood, of the shattered desperation of the group of Romans that had taken them prisoner, of the dead and lifeless look in Minya’s eyes before Gabrielle had helped her.  She thought of all these things, and again felt a chill as she thought of Potedaia.  A gut-clenching fear flashed over her—there and then gone—and she wondered if she would ever see her home village again….or what it would look like when she did. All this was enough to overpower her fears of blasphemy; she swallowed and then continued.  “I agree that the old gods are—that they do not hear.  M—maybe they’re even dead, who knows.  But there are many out there who still fear them.  What if—if someone really _is_ innocent, but refuses to convert because they fear the old gods?  What about that?  Has it ever occurred to you that you might be killing innocent people?”

 

“I’m sure I have,” Najara responded. Again that calm, that serenity was unruffled; the Crusader admitted this without so much as flickering an eyelash. Gabrielle couldn’t suppress a shiver. “It is definitely to be regretted,” Najara continued without any trace of regret—without any trace of any emotion at all. “But I am dealing with events on a worldwide scale. I have captured and brought thousands—tens of thousands—to the Light, in one way or another, in my quest to bring safety and order to countless millions of people throughout the world. On that scale, Gabrielle, how much does the life of one signify?” she asked quietly. “What is the life of one, when compared against thousands—millions? When compared against the world? I do my best to avoid it, but I would be surprised if some innocent souls were not among those I have sent to the Light. I am flawed and imperfect, as all human beings are. The method the djinn have shown me is the best that can be expected of this imperfect world. It is merely the best I can do. I am not a god, Gabrielle,” she repeated quietly. “I am no more than a mortal woman, small and limited and crippled like all mortals, and there is no one who is more aware than I of just how far I fall short of perfection. I’m certain that some innocent people have died by my hand, just as some of those to whom I show mercy have gone on to commit more crimes and cause more suffering as soon as they think themselves free of my grip.” Najara bowed her head for a moment, her face shadowed. “Those I have killed will go to the Light,” she resumed, “and the Light will judge them. If they are innocent, the Light will absolve them and take them into its embrace. If they are not, the Light will deal with them also. The Light looks after us all,” she concluded, her face utterly tranquil and serene.

 

Again, there was something, something about the Crusader, something that Gabrielle couldn’t put her finger on…it seemed almost like something _familiar…._

 

“I don’t know,” she said at last.  “Please, don’t take this the wrong way,” she said hastily, even as she was aware that she was speaking to the Crusader in a way she never would have dared with Xena or Callisto, “but what gives you the right to make these decisions?  What makes you worthy—“

 

“I am not worthy,” Najara responded at once, bowing her head humbly. “There is nobody who is less worthy than I, less deserving of the Light’s grace and trust. I said before, I know just how far I fall short of perfection,” she said calmly. “I am too well aware of my own flaws; I could accuse myself of such failings, such shortcomings, that it were almost better I had not been born. I fail to attain the Light’s deserving every day, in more ways than you could possibly imagine,” she told Gabrielle. “There is not time enough in the day to list all my flaws….I am stubborn, easily angered, and quick to doubt. I am proud, spiteful, revengeful, and slow to accept what the djinn and the Light set before me.” She spoke these words with that same unearthly serenity; there was no hint of anger on that face. “Nevertheless, unworthy as I am, flawed as I am, imperfect as I am, the djinn, for reasons only they may know, have chosen me to work their will. There are times when I would much rather they had chosen someone else, but such wishes are simply a manifestation of the weakness of my spirit. It is I who am their chosen, and it is not for me to question or gainsay that choice. And since I am their chosen, with all my many, many shortcomings, it is my sacred obligation, from which I may not turn aside, to try to the best of my severely limited abilities to work their will and perform their commands on earth…to bring the Light.”

 

She folded her hands in her lap and returned that focused gaze to Gabrielle, waiting to see if her guest had any more questions.  Gabrielle frowned, thinking.  Her unease was stronger than ever, and she couldn’t figure out why.  Najara’s strange serenity, that calm that she found so troubling—it was so _familiar,_ somehow, but she couldn’t remember—

 

Then it struck her like a ton of bricks, and sent her reeling.  _I’ve seen this before.  I have_.  She turned to stare at her companion, dazed from the sudden flash of insight; her companion recoiled at her sudden motion and his eyes darted away from hers.  _That calm.  That total assurance. That absolute faith.   I_ know _this._

 

Caesar.

 

All of that, she realized, raising a hand to her head.  All of that talk about how she was the chosen of the _djinn,_ how it was her duty to carry out their commands on earth, that it was not up to her to question them—it sounded eerily like the way Caesar had spoken of his destiny, in the first days of their travels. _You are the only one who can do what must be done._  That talk about how there was no one in the world as unworthy as she was, Gabrielle realized—that was a perfect inverse to Caesar’s air of entitlement, to the way he had acted as if he were exceptional and everyone in the world should bend to his wishes.  _It’s the same,_ Gabrielle realized dazedly.  _Exactly the same, except that Najara feels she’s already failed, so she can’t be broken as he is.  It’s the same…._   And then on the heels of that thought, as she sat under the pale, calm gaze of She of the _Djinn,_   _She’ll never free Stallonus.  Caesar wouldn’t, and she wouldn’t either.  She’ll never let him go unless he converts.  Never.  What do I do now?_

 

Najara was looking at her inquiringly.  “Are you all right?” she asked solicitously.  Gabrielle managed a nod and a weak smile, and took another sip of tea, thinking again, _What am I going to do?_

 

[*]

 

“She won’t let you go.  You’ll have to convert.”

 

Night had fallen.  Gabrielle had ducked out of the tent briefly on the pretext of going for a walk, and had hurried across the dew-silvered grass to the place where the prisoners were chained.  Only a sliver of crescent moon was out.  Gabrielle had waited until the guards had passed on their rounds, then gone to where Stallonus was secured, out on the end of the line, separated a bit from the rest of them.  The others were largely quiet, Gabrielle was surprised to notice; probably they were thinking of Najara’s evening sermon.

 

“I _can’t,_ ” Stallonus had insisted, running his chained hands over his face.

 

“There is no _can’t,_ Stallonus, you _have_ to.  It’s easy—I asked about it at dinner.  All you have to do is be initiated into the Light and take the vows, then go on your way and give up the sword.  As long as you don’t take up the sword again, you don’t even have to mean it!  There’s nothing to it—“

 

“I _can’t do it._ ”

 

“Why not?” Gabrielle had demanded angrily.

 

Stallonus gave a frustrated sigh.  “Look, there’s a—there’s a curse on my family, okay?” he said, looking up at her.  “It goes back to the time of my great grandfather.  Apparently he did something—my dad wasn’t sure what—that angered a priestess of Isis, and so she laid a curse on him and all his descendants—that his sons, and his sons’ sons, and so on till the end of his line would have to be followers of Isis, and if any one of us fell away from her worship, we would die horrible deaths that very day.  I _saw_ it happen.  One year during a drought my uncle prayed to Demeter, and that same day he was crushed to death by a runaway cart.  I can’t do it, Gabrielle,” he said desperately.

 

“Well, you’re going to die a horrible death anyway when Najara executes you for not following the Light!” Gabrielle said sharply.

 

“Not if you get me out of here.  I know you can do it, Gabrielle,” he said fervently.

 

“I’m not so sure.  Look, Najara says the old gods are dead,” Gabrielle said.  “Maybe—maybe—“

 

But Stallonus shuddered, in the damp coolness of the evening.  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t care to take the chance,” he said sharply.  “Particularly not when Najara is saying blasphemous things like that.  She’s just _asking_ for the gods to come and strike her down!” he said, looking distressed.  Gabrielle held her peace, thinking blasphemous thoughts herself—thinking that, though she had never seen or dealt with the gods, beyond leaving offerings at their temples, she could not imagine any sort of god that would succeed in striking down the likes of Najara, or Callisto, or Xena.

 

“What are you even _doing_ here, anyway?” she demanded irritably.  “How’d you ever get mixed up in all this?”

 

“Look, what else was I supposed to do?” Stallonus demanded harshly.  His face was set and unhappy.  “My mother was dead, all right?  My brothers had abandoned the farm months ago—they left my mother to _die_ in the face of Callisto’s advance; that’s why I went home in the first place.  I don’t know where they are now, or if they’re even alive or dead and I don’t care, either.  Two of my cousins had run off to join Xena’s army when the Daughter of War passed through there earlier, and the rest had fled the valley to the gods know where.  My village was completely empty, and there was no one to help me work the land.  It was stay where I was and starve, or leave and see what else I could find.  That’s not much of a choice, Gabrielle!”

 

“You could have come back to the Academy—“

 

“How was I supposed to _get_ to the Academy?” he demanded.  “Xena and Callisto were fighting all between my village and Athens, and where they weren’t fighting, the land was full of bandits and thieves and slavers preying off the people they’d displaced.  You should know this yourself!  It wasn’t possible,” he said, shaking his head.  “What else could I do?  I took my father’s legionary sword and left to see what I could find, and I found Zagreas—or rather, he found me.  At least it was three meals a day, Gabrielle!” he insisted angrily.  “I never killed innocents.  I never did that.  I burned houses, carried off food and valuables, but I never killed women and children.  I managed to avoid doing that.  I thought about leaving every day, but I had nowhere else to go, and I was afraid Zagreas’s men would kill me if I tried to leave.  You’ve got to get me out of here, Gabrielle,” he said desperately.  “You’ve got to.”

 

Gabrielle sighed, and ran her hands over her face.  “All right.  Just hang on.  Let me see what I can do.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Najara left early the next morning, rising to deliver her morning sermon to the men in chains, then leaving to escort ten men and a shipment of medical supplies to a nearby village.  Gabrielle wasted no time in tracking down Jett.

 

She came up to him as he was commanding the disposition of several wagonloads of grain that had arrived from Najara’s main army stores.  “Jett!  Jett!” she called.

 

He turned and looked at her, surprised.  “Gabrielle?  I thought you were with Tara—“

 

“I need to talk to you,” she said.  “Can you meet me outside the hospital tent?”

 

“Sure,” he agreed readily.  “Hang on.”  Jett turned and spoke briefly to one of the wagon drivers.  “All right, let’s go,” he said. 

 

Gabrielle led him to the flat rock outside the hospital tent’s door, underneath the spreading branches of the old beech tree.  “Jett, I need your help,” she said.  “You know what I said earlier, about my friend Stallonus?  The one whom Najara has captured?”  At Jett’s nod, she continued.  “Stallonus won’t convert to the Light, because he’s afraid to.  His family has always worshiped Isis, and there’s apparently a curse on them that if they abandon Isis, they’ll die.  So, what does Najara do in this case?  What do I need to do to get him released?”

 

Jett listened to her politely for a moment or so, then shook his head.  “I’m sorry, Gabrielle,” he told her, “but there’s nothing you can do.  Najara is very insistent on her rules.  Stallonus will have to convert.”

 

“But—but he _won’t_ convert.”

 

“Then he can’t be released and he will be executed.  I’m sorry, Gabrielle.”

 

“He’ll be—“  Gabrielle stared at him.  Jett faced her calmly, with little expression; his eyes on hers were kind, patient, sympathetic…and unmoved.  _He’s not going to help me,_ Gabrielle realized.  A sinking feeling crept into her gut.  _I thought he was my_ friend….  She hadn’t realized how much she had been counting on Jett to help her.

 

She said that out loud.  “You—you—Jett, I thought you were my _friend!_ ”

 

“I’m sorry, Gabrielle,” he said quietly.

 

“You’re _sorry?_ ”  Gabrielle thought of Stallonus, whom she had promised to help.  “Jett, I gave my _word_ that I would help him!  Do you know what that means for a bard?”

 

“Then I suggest you help him find a way to convert,” Jett told her.  “I realize that this might be hard for you to understand, Gabrielle,” he added with more sympathy, “but—“

 

“It doesn’t make any _sense!_ ” Gabrielle insisted.

 

“I know it doesn’t seem as if it makes sense to you,” Jett agreed.  “But you have to understand, Gabrielle—Najara does things for a reason, even if that reason is not always clear.  Her _djinn_ do not guide her in error.  I don’t know what they are, but I do know they are real; I’ve seen it.  I’ve seen Najara make decisions based on their advice that I thought at the time were wrong, misguided, or profoundly foolish, but again and again, these same decisions have turned out, in the long run, to be the best if not the only choice she could possibly have made—even when she had absolutely no way of knowing.  What she does with the people she captures—that’s another _djinn_ thing; she does this on their advice and their orders.  I know enough about the _djinn_ to know that I don’t understand them, and because I don’t, I won’t interfere in anything they do.”

 

Jett delivered this all in an even, steady voice; his eyes were calm, fixed on hers, and utterly rational.  Gabrielle looked in vain for the light of the fanatic that she was sure must be there, but saw nothing.  Only Jett, waiting patiently for her to speak, ready to help her answer whatever questions she might have.

 

“How can you _do_ it?” she burst out angrily, not thinking that this man was the King of Assassins and could easily kill her in a heartbeat.  “How can you just—just _blindly_ follow her orders like that?  I thought you were my _friend,_ Jett!” she flung at him.  “I thought you were my _friend—_ “

 

Jett listened to her tirade tolerantly until she stopped, having run out of breath.  “Gabrielle, this may surprise you,” he told her, “but I’m not blind to what she is.  I’ve stood at Najara’s right hand for years, I _know_ her in all her moods, better than almost anyone else—“

 

“If you _really_ know what she is, then why don’t you do anything about it?”  Gabrielle almost stammered, she was so upset.  She hadn’t intended to go on, but she found herself continuing almost without even knowing what she was going to say.  “If you really—Can’t you see what she could be?  Why don’t you try to stop some of this stuff?  Why don’t you—“ 

 

Jett looked at her for a long period of time.  “Gabrielle, are you all right?” he asked gently.

 

“ _Yes_ , I’m all right!  Don’t tell me I’m not all right!  My friend is going to be _executed_ and you’re asking me if I’m all _right?_ ”  She could hear her voice rising shrilly and cut herself off.  Jett said nothing, but watched and waited patiently.

 

Gabrielle drew a long breath, calming herself, thinking about his question—both about the answer, and about what she could say that might convince Jett to help her.  She found it was the same in both cases.  “I killed, Jett,” she said at last, quietly.  Her voice was still a trifle unsteady.  Jett was silent, listening, but gentle sympathy showed in his eyes.  “I took someone’s life.  No, the lives of _two_ people,” she said, suddenly remembering with a shock.  “Licinus I remember, but I keep forgetting the second man.  Isn’t that wrong, Jett?” she asked him, honestly disturbed.  “Shouldn’t it be harder than that to forget a death?”

 

“Maybe,” the King of Assassins said just as quietly.

 

“In both cases,” she continued, “I killed because I absolutely had to—because there was nothing else I could do, and because there was a real danger to my life—and—and Caesar’s life, too,” she said, her mouth twisting a bit at those words.  “I killed to protect, I had to—but still, Jett, it bothers me.  I wish I hadn’t had to.  I know what blood costs.  I know what it’s like to take a life now, Jett, and it seems to me that it’s something we should only do when there’s no other choice.  Shouldn’t we try to _avoid_ all unnecessary bloodshed?” she asked, letting some of her real pain show through.  “If—If Najara could say with certainty that all those she killed for not converting to the Light were guilty, then I could at least _understand_ —but she can’t.  She _knows_ she can’t—she even said she’s sure she’s killed innocents.  _I_ know she can’t.  I know Stallonus.  I _know_ him.  He would _never_ hurt anyone.  The only reason he won’t convert to the Light is because he’s afraid to.  And Najara will kill him anyway, because she’s so sure she’s right that she won’t even consider the possibility—“  Gabrielle broke off, clasping her hands together.  The overwhelming memory of Najara, of her tremendous power coupled with such confidence— _arrogance, even,_ she realized, thinking again of Caesar—filled her mind.

 

Jett waited patiently to be sure she had finished, then replied.  “It sounds like this is really bothering you,” he said quietly.

 

“Yes.  Yes it is,” she said unhappily.  “Jett, _please_ help me.”

 

“Gabrielle, try to understand,” he continued.  His words were gentle, his voice soft, persuasive.  There was nothing of the cultist’s zeal in his speech.  “It is as she told you at dinner last night.  Najara is dealing with events that have worldwide consequences, and as she said, set against such a scale, it’s very easy for one person to get lost.  That’s not the way it should be, Gabrielle, and it’s a measure of your compassionate soul that it affects you, but it’s the way it _is._   Najara is doing this because she’s the only one who can.  As I said, I know what she is, better than almost anyone else—“

 

“What is she, then?” Gabrielle asked, not without a trace of bitterness.

 

Jett smiled.  “How much time have you got?” he asked with a glance at the sun; he continued more seriously.  “What is she?  Rigid, inflexible, authoritarian, demanding.  Semi-delusional in some respects, and humble to a degree that approximates the arrogance of your friend—did you think I didn’t know that?” he asked at Gabrielle’s look of surprise.  “It’s true.  But in addition, she is by _far_ , the last, best hope for the world, and so, I serve by her side, doing all I can to help her.  Who else but she could have the power to stand against Xena and Callisto?” he asked her.  Gabrielle couldn’t think of a one.  “Who else is able and willing to take up arms to defend _peasants and villagers_ from warlords and bandits?  Who else cares enough to feed the hungry, clothe the poor and tend the sick, and has the resources to do it on the scale she does?  Najara does all these things, because it is her nature, and because she believes the Light commands it and has given her her power for exactly that purpose.  Caesar, from what I understand, wanted no part of defending this village from Zagreas until you forced him into it—and even then, he failed.  Najara defended this village and succeeded.  Xena could have done it, but she would not have.  Neither would Callisto.  Najara, on the other hand _did_ , because the Light told her to—and because she cares.”

 

Gabrielle bit her lip.  Stallonus was in her thoughts.  “She did,” Gabrielle acknowledged.  “But six months down the line, if another warlord comes by, conscripts all the villagers to fight for him, and then Najara captures them, she’ll kill them unless they agree to follow her Light.  Won’t she?”

 

Jett nodded.  “Probably—although she will be scrupulous about ensuring that all understand the choice offered to them, and once they convert she will not harm them under any circumstances unless they take up the sword again.  This is what the Light has commanded her, she says.”

 

 “Then how can you say she’s any better than they are?”

 

Jett drew a deep breath.  He paused, but Gabrielle did not get a sense that he didn’t know what to reply; it was more as if he were trying to order his thoughts in a coherent fashion.  His gaze wandered left, and Gabrielle followed it.  He was looking at Caesar, she saw; Caesar had emerged from the command tent, moving slowly and painfully, and took a seat on a tree stump, rubbing his legs.  He didn’t seem to be aware of their presence.

 

“Your companion there,” Jett said, gesturing to the former emperor.  Gabrielle frowned, not sure where he was going.  “Has it ever occurred to you, Gabrielle, that he would have made a much better ruler of the world than either Xena or Callisto?”

 

Gabrielle stared at him in disbelief; the idea of _Caesar_ as emperor of the world was something she shrank from contemplating.

 

Jett laughed a little at her expression.  “Oh, but it’s true.  Because Xena and Callisto take no thought for the future or anything beyond their own immediate wants and needs.  Xena destroyed capriciously, on the spur of her immediate whims; she lashed out at whatever caught her temper like a spoiled child, from what I’ve heard of her.”  Gabrielle half-consciously raised her hand to rub the side of her face; she knew it for truth.  “Callisto is even worse; for instead of destroying merely as the whims of the moment move her, Callisto actively goes out of her way to demolish _everything_ she encounters.  Your companion there, whatever his flaws as a ruler—and they are undoubtedly many—wanted to _build_.  From everything I’ve ever heard of him, he was profoundly concerned with his legacy, and wished to be remembered forever as a great ruler.  You can’t be remembered if there is no one left to remember you.  He would destroy as he needed to but not for the sake of destroying, and he planned for the things he destroyed to be replaced by monuments to his glory.  And given Hades’s choice between the man who wishes to destroy the world and the one who wishes to rule it, you have no choice but to pick the latter.”

 

“And you’re saying that’s Najara,” Gabrielle concluded.  “You’re saying that you support her because she is the best of a bad lot—“

 

“Oh, she’s more than that,” Jett said with quiet conviction.  “She’s much more.  I support Najara not only because the other choices are so much worse, but because she deserves my loyalty.  She’s earned it by her actions—actions that stem directly out of her belief in the Light.  I’ve seen her sit for hours in the lonely corner of a dark and dirty hospice, by the bedside of a child horribly burned by one of Callisto’s fires, telling the child stories, making her laugh, easing her pain, and assuring her that she is still a beautiful girl who is worthy of love.  I’ve seen her walk into a house where the spotted death reigned, with no thought for her own personal safety, to give medicine and minister to the sick—even though the village was empty and there was no one but I to see her and know if she left those people to die.  I’ve ridden hundreds of miles at great peril with her across icy steppes to bring grain to villages cut off from the outside world and starving, though doing so took us a week out of our way and almost cost us a battle.  I’ve seen her throw herself into battle, again and again, even when she was outnumbered ten to one, because there were those who could not defend themselves that needed defending—and come out victorious, time after time after time.  You should ask Tara about Najara, and see what she tells you.  She of the _Djinn_ isn’t perfect, Gabrielle,” he said quietly.  “She’s not a hero.  There are no heroes in this world.  She is a _deeply_ flawed person, as you’ve heard her say yourself,” he said, smiling.  “And yes, her unswerving belief in the Light fuels some of those flaws—that arrogance, that rigidity, that superconfident sense that she is always right.  But it is that same belief that leads— _forces_ —her to do that which no other will do, or even dare to attempt.  She is worthy of my loyalty, Gabrielle,” he repeated, “my faith, my trust, and yes, my obedience.  She is also worthy of yours, if you could only see it.”

 

He paused there.  Gabrielle stared at him.  Jett had spoken with quiet but not fanatical conviction, with passion but not with zeal, with a firm confidence that did not slip over the line into blind fervor.  Gabrielle found the cool reason in his voice a hundred times more disturbing than if he had raved—because it was that much harder to dismiss.

 

“You’re wrong,” she said at last, and hoped Jett wouldn’t say anything else, because she couldn’t back it up.

 

Jett shrugged.  “Believe as you wish, Gabrielle,” he replied.  “My knowledge of Najara comes from years of experience at her side.  You don’t have that, and I can’t make you see her as I do.”

 

“You’re wrong,” she repeated only.  Jett didn’t answer this time, but only watched her.  Shaken, Gabrielle backed up a pace—two—then turned abruptly and left, retreating to the safety of the medical tent.

 

[*]

 

As she spent the rest of the day making her rounds, Gabrielle’s mind was running in circles.  What Jett had told her about Najara—and Stallonus—what to do about Stallonus?  He wouldn’t convert, she was sure of that now after speaking to him and hearing about his family curse—but she couldn’t just leave him to be killed by Najara. _Najara._   How could such an arresting woman, such a compassionate woman, such a kind woman, do that to her friend? What could she do?  What could she—

 

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear Tara come up to her until the dark-eyed healer touched her on the shoulder.  “Gabrielle,” she said, “I heard that you went to talk to Jett about one of the prisoners?”

 

Gabrielle glanced up for a moment, startled.  “Yes, Tara, my friend Stallonus—I know him from our time together at the Academy of Performing Bards in Athens.”  At Tara’s questioning look, Gabrielle thought, _Maybe she can help me,_ and continued, “He was captured with Zagreas’s army and Najara has him in chains.  He won’t convert—he says his family has a curse on them that they’ll die that same day if they leave the worship of Isis.    Tara, I don’t know what to do.  He’s my friend.  How can I save him?  Can you help me?”

 

She held Tara’s dark eyes, pleading.  Tara watched her for a long time, her face oddly shadowed.  At last the young healer said, frowning, “You should leave him alone.”

 

“Oh, Tara, not you too—“ Gabrielle began, heartbroken.

 

“Najara gives everyone a chance, as long as they convert,” Tara said, her scowl deepening.  “If he won’t take the chance, that’s his problem.  Don’t you worry about it, Gabrielle,” she added with a smile that seemed as if it was meant to be reassuring.  “If he won’t convert, then he wasn’t worth it anyway.”

 

Gabrielle stared at Tara, profoundly disturbed by what she was hearing.  It seemed suddenly as if a chasm divided the two of them.  It was one more shock on top of everything else—on top of Jett’s cool rationality, on top of Najara’s calm confidence.  “Tara, I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Gabrielle burst out at her friend.  “Aren’t you supposed to try to do no harm?  You’re—you’re a healer!”

 

Tara’s face fell suddenly into lines of deep bitterness.  She looked old beyond her years.  “I am _now,_ ” she said.

 

Peripherally, Gabrielle observed just how much Tara looked like Caesar in that moment—it was mostly a matter of those dark eyes and that harsh expression, so out of place on such young features.  “Tara, you have to help me,” Gabrielle said again.  “Please.  You’re my friend, Tara—“

 

“I’m sorry, Gabrielle, but no.” 

 

“Why not?” Gabrielle demanded, gearing up for battle.

 

Tara gave a long sigh.  That harsh expression had not left her face.  “Gabrielle, you don’t understand about the people Najara captures—“

 

“I _know_ Stallonus.  He didn’t want to be with Zagreas’s men—he’s innocent, he says that he—“

 

“ _All_ of the people Najara captures are innocent,” Tara said bitterly.  “At least, if you listen to _them._ ”  Her eyes shone wetly.  “And they all go on their way swearing they’ll never hurt anyone again, not ever.  That’s what they all say if you listen to them.”

 

“Tara, listen—“

 

“ _No,_ Gabrielle, _you_ listen!” Tara cried, turning on Gabrielle tearfully.  Gabrielle fell silent, struck by the pain in Tara’s face.  “I know more about this than you!

 

Gabrielle stared at her friend.  “Tara—“

 

“He’s innocent.   _Sure_ he is,” Tara said, smiling sardonically.  The expression looked far too old for her.  “The warlord who owned me was innocent too, he _swore_ he was.  He _swore_ he hadn’t abandoned the Light, and that he had just been buying us slaves in order to free us, he just somehow hadn’t gotten around to it yet—he swore it, right up until the moment Najara’s blade went through his neck.”

 

“Well…well….maybe he was telling the truth,” Gabrielle faltered.  “Maybe he _had_ been planning to—“  She stopped at the look on Tara’s face.  “Tara…” she whispered.

 

“You don’t know, Gabrielle,” Tara repeated, her eyes cold.  “I do.”

 

“Oh, Tara….” 

Tara sank down onto a crate of upturned medical supplies. That bitter smile did not leave her face. “I was the best dancer in my village,” she said quietly. “Did I tell you that, Gabrielle? I was the best. I always got to dance the lead in all the festivals because I was so good. Everyone in my village said so.”

 

Gabrielle didn’t know what to say.  “Tara, you don’t have to—“

 

“It was a couple of years ago when the slavers hit my village.  Have you heard of Salmoneus?”  She glanced at Gabrielle.  “The Slaver Lord,” she clarified, mistaking Gabrielle’s look of horror for one of incomprehension.  “He’s one of the biggest slave traders there is….his operation goes all the way up to Brittania, from what I hear.  Raiders looking for slaves to sell to him had been attacking villages throughout the area for a while, carrying off people—youth, mostly.  Young men and women who would be strong workers and would fetch good prices at auction.  They raided our village one night, and there was nothing we could do to stop them.  They grabbed me and about a dozen other villagers and just carried us off into the night.”

 

“Tara, that’s awful,” Gabrielle said, feeling tears sting her eyes.  Tara’s black eyes were wet.

 

“The men offered my village a chance to buy us back.  They sent messages to the village elders naming a price and saying if they could meet it we would be returned unharmed.  What do you think happened, Gabrielle?” she asked.  “What do you think our own mothers and fathers did?”  Her words were bitter, but her face was that of a small child’s, lost and betrayed.

 

Gabrielle was silent.

 

“They said no.”  Tara’s voice shook.  “They said that they weren’t going to buy us back because that would only encourage the slavers to take more people.  They wouldn’t fight to keep us and they wouldn’t buy us back.  My own mother and father.”  She swallowed.  “They just let me go for dead.”  Tears were running down her face now.

 

“Tara, I’m so sorry,” Gabrielle whispered, feeling how utterly inadequate her words were.  “I’m so sorry that happened….”

 

“The man in charge of the raiders was named Mezentius,” Tara went on.  “I guess he had been a warlord pushed out of his territory by Xena or Callisto and had taken up slaving.  Most of the youth from our village were sold right away at auction, but somehow Mezentius found out about me being a dancer.  He had a partner, Istafan, who ran a dance troupe that he rented out, so I got sold to his partner to be trained as a dancer.  I _hated_ it,” she said, her voice breaking.  “I hated it so much, Gabrielle—“

 

“Tara, stop,” Gabrielle pleaded.  She could feel Tara’s pain as if it were her own.  “ _Please,_ Tara—you don’t have to tell me—“

 

“They _made_ me dance,” Tara said, scrubbing at her face with a sleeve.  “Can you imagine it, Gabrielle?  You said you’re a bard, can you think about what it would be like to _have_ to perform?” she asked desperately.  “To be forced to perform even when you didn’t want to for people you hated?   Not to be able to perform what you wanted or how you wanted, but how someone else _ordered_ you to?  We got beaten every day, whenever we made mistakes or did anything else the owner of the troupe didn’t like.  I _hated_ it,” she said again, almost sobbing.  Her black eyes were wet with tears.  “I _hated_ it.  It was the worst thing in the world.  Being a slave is the worst thing in the world.  It kills you from the inside.  There isn’t _anything_ in the world worse than being a slave,” she insisted.  “If I had a choice between being a slave again and _dying,_ I would rather die than go back to that.”

 

Gabrielle was silent.  What she did as a bard came from the deepest, most inward part of her.  What Tara had said, about being _forced_ to perform—the very idea made her shudder.  It would be a violation of every fiber of her being.

 

“I was in that troupe for over a year.  The owner of the troupe was trying to get us ready to take us to Ch’in, to sell us to the Empress, I think her name is Lao Ma.  I didn’t want to go, but it didn’t matter what I wanted.  And then….”  She paused.  “Najara came.”

 

Tara stopped there.  Her lips were still trembling, and tears were drying on her cheeks, but her entire face lit up just at the thought of the Crusader.  Gabrielle was deeply struck by the look on her face.

 

“She apologized,” Tara continued.  “That really meant a lot to me,” she added with a shaky smile.  “She apologized to all of us that we had had to suffer because she had failed, and asked us to forgive her.”

 

“Did you?” Gabrielle asked quietly.

 

Tara gave that same soft, almost worshipful smile.  “Forgiving _Najara_ wasn’t hard at all,” she said.  “The ones I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive are Mezentius and Istafan.  And my parents.”  Her voice was thick with anger.  “I’ll _never_ forgive them.  Any of them.  Not ever.  They don’t deserve it.”

 

She looked up at Gabrielle.  “Najara offered to give us an escort back to our villages, so that we could get there safely, but I didn’t want to go back.  I don’t ever want to go back.  I don’t ever want to see my parents again.  They did _nothing,_ ” she said angrily.  “Not my parents, not the village elders, _nothing._   Najara was the _only_ one who ever helped us.  The _only_ one.  She was there for us when there was _nobody_ else.  When my own mother and father had given me up for dead.  Well if that’s the way they feel about it—if I’m dead to them, then they’re dead to me too.”  Her face set into grim lines.  Then her expression softened. 

 

“Najara even got me to dance again,” she said with a trembling smile.  “After I was freed I didn’t want to dance ever again.  I thought I would just work in Najara’s army as a healer and that this way I could maybe pay her back a little bit for what she did for me.  Then one day I tried out a step or two—just to see if I remembered how to do it—and it turned out Najara was watching.  She told me—“  Tara’s eyes filled again with tears “—she told me she thought I was a beautiful dancer and it would be a shame if I never danced again.  It would be letting the slavers win.  The first time I performed at circle, I almost couldn’t do it, but Najara was there watching and she told me, ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to.  Nobody’s going to make you perform, but we all would love to see you.’  When she said that, it was easy.

 

“Najara’s right, Gabrielle,” Tara concluded.  The tears were drying on her cheeks, and her voice was still unsteady, but serious.  “She’s right.  She knows what she’s doing.  If it weren’t for her I’d still be a slave and those animals who captured me would still be alive hurting more people.  She set me free and even gave me back my dancing.  The people she captures are _bad_ people, Gabrielle,” Tara said passionately.  “Najara gives them a _chance_ which is more than they even _deserve_.  Your friend says he’s innocent.  Sure he is.  _Sure_ he is.  If he won’t take the chance Najara’s giving him, then that’s his problem.  He doesn’t deserve to have someone like you wasting your time thinking about him.”

 

Her delicate jawline had set, resolute.  Her dark eyes were hard.  Staring at her, Gabrielle was struck by a wave of terrible sorrow.  _She won’t help me,_ Gabrielle thought, and couldn’t even find it in her heart to be angry at her friend.  _Oh, Tara._

 

Tara wouldn’t help her.  Jett wouldn’t help her.  Gabrielle knew what she had to do.

 


	5. Chapter 5

It was full dark when Gabrielle stole out of the command tent; the moon was no more than a sliver in the sky, and deep black shadows lay thickly over the encampment.  She had waited until she could hear the change in Caesar’s breathing that indicated he slept, and had silently risen from her bed.  Najara had not returned, and careful inquiries to Jett had suggested that she would not make it back that night.

 

Moving stealthily and staying to the areas of the deepest shadow, Gabrielle crept through the darkened encampment.  The ground was uneven, more so than it looked by daytime, and she had to pick her way carefully.  More than once, she had to duck down an alleyway between two tents as soldiers with torches marched by on patrol; she could also see sentries posted around the outer ring of the encampment.  _That’ll make it harder,_ she thought.  At last, she reached the area where the captives were chained, in front of the low dais where Najara had addressed the captives the day before.  She waited in the shadows to the side of the dais until the guards had passed by on their march, then with a last look to make sure there were no watchers and she was unobserved, Gabrielle silently crept forward, keeping low to the ground, to where Stallonus was chained in the dark, at the end of the line of prisoners.

 

Getting down next to him, trying to blend her outline in with the mass of the rest of the prisoners so that the chance observer would see nothing unusual, Gabrielle put one hand over Stallonus’s mouth and hissed in his ear, “It’s me!”

 

Stallonus came awake instantly, opening his eyes, but he made no betraying movement.  His eyes found her.  “Gabrielle?” he whispered back, his voice low and uncarrying.  “What are you doing here?”  She could barely see his features in the dark. 

 

“Najara said no,” Gabrielle whispered back.  “She said she wouldn’t free you and I couldn’t get anyone else to help me.  So I’ve come to let you out.”  She took her hands away and began feeling in her belt pouch for the specially shaped piece of wire she had gotten during the course of the afternoon.  “Lean forward,” she started to tell him, but Stallonus had already done it, moving with expert silence to cause minimum noise from the chains that bound him in place.  Gabrielle set to work on the locks that secured his wrists and collar.  It was hard to see in the darkness, and she stuck herself with the probe more than once.

 

“Najara said no?” Stallonus repeated.  Gabrielle glanced at him.  It looked from what she could see as if he were frowning.

 

“She completely refused,” Gabrielle hissed back.  “Which is why I’m doing it like this.  Once I have you out of these chains,” she continued, “head west through the camp.  The western boundary is the closest, and it’s right up against the treeline.  You should be able to get away in the woods.”  The collar fell off; Stallonus caught it before it could hit the ground with a betraying clank, and set it down gently.  Gabrielle turned her attention to the shackles.

 

“So she doesn’t know about this,” Stallonus said.

 

“Right.  So you’re going to have to be stealthy,” she told him. 

 

“Are there guards?” he asked

 

“The camp has lots of guards on patrol.  I was almost caught once or twice coming over here.  Stay in the shadows—“

 

“What about sentries around the camp?”

 

“There are sentries,” Gabrielle confirmed, digging at the lock; it was sticking.  _Probably rusty,_ she thought, and wished that she could pick locks as well as Jett had. 

 

“What about cover?” he asked.  “Are there bushes, undergrowth, trees—“

 

“The western boundary has the most undergrowth.  There are also the supply wagons out there which might help.”

 

“But there are still sentries and guards out there?”

 

“You should be able to make it if you’re careful.”  One lock opened with a click.  Gabrielle went to work on the other one.

 

“I see,” he said thoughtfully.

 

The other lock was proving to be much easier; Gabrielle dug at it a little, and it came off as well.  There was a click, and the shackles dropped away.  “There you go,” she told him.  “If you just—“

 

Her words cut off as Stallonus clamped a strong hand over her mouth.  Before she even had time to react, the other hand found the hilt of her belt knife and yanked it free from its sheath at her waist.  The keen edge of her own knife burned where he laid it against her throat.  Then the hand left her mouth and grasped her wrist, gripping her like iron.  Shock froze her in place; she couldn’t even figure out what was happening.  “Go ahead and scream, Gabrielle,” Stallonus was hissing in her ear.  “Go ahead.  I’ll slit your throat from ear to ear before anyone can get here to help you.”

 

“What do you think you’re _doing?_ ” Gabrielle managed to get out in a squeak of indignation.

 

“Doing what I have to,” Stallonus said harshly.  “The chance of getting past those sentries will probably go up if I’ve got a hostage with me.  Just don’t fight me, Gabrielle, and don’t do anything to give us away.  I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.  And please, don’t doubt me when I tell you I’ll do it; it wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done.”

 

Clouds had rolled across the thin sliver of moon, extinguishing what little light there was.  A rough yank on her wrist and Stallonus was dragging her, under cover of darkness, into the shadows at the edge of the field.   “You told me you never killed innocents!” Gabrielle hissed at him in horror.  She stumbled on purpose, but Stallonus’s grip on her wrist did not break; he dragged her after him ferociously. He hissed a grim laugh.




 

“And you _believed_ me when I said that?  I told you what you wanted to hear so that you would be on my side.  You have no idea what’s happened to me since I left the academy.  Killing innocents is the least of it.  It’s easy—much easier than killing soldiers.  Try it yourself sometime.  You’ll see.”  He gave that bitter laugh again.  He was shoving her before him now, pushing her so fast through the darkened avenues of the camp that Gabrielle was afraid they would crash into an obstacle they couldn’t see in the dark.  She struggled against him, but Stallonus was too strong for her.  The sharp edge of her belt knife was burning against her throat.

 

“You _lied_ to me!” Gabrielle breathed, outraged.  She couldn’t believe what was happening.  The Stallonus she had known had been an innocuous, funny guy around the academy, the life of all the parties— _who_ is _this person?_ she could only wonder in utter disbelief, as the grim-faced stranger who held her prisoner drove her mercilessly onward.  _Who_ is _this?_

 

“I did what I had to.  Everyone does what they have to, Gabrielle.  Nobody ever does anything else.”  The heavy tread of a patrol was drawing near to them.  Stallonus yanked her down an alleyway as they passed, with torches lit and armor jingling.  Gabrielle started to draw in breath to scream, but the blade bit into her throat.  “Try it,” Stallonus breathed in her ear.  “Just try it.   By the time they get here to kill me, you’ll already be dead.”  Gabrielle felt a tiny rill of blood snaking its way down her neck.  A cold wave of fear ran up her spine, and she shuddered, knowing Stallonus felt it too.  “Good girl,” he breathed in her ear. “Come on.” 




 

He shoved her back out into the uneven avenue, and drove her before him. “Now the curse on my family—that at least was the truth.  I’ll tell you that much.  It’s too bad too; it would have been nice if I really could have converted to the Light.  Najara made it sound really good, did you hear her?  All that talk about forgiveness.  Maybe the Light could have helped me.  If anything can help me now.”  Gabrielle wrenched at him and almost broke free, but Stallonus pulled her back in time.

 

“ _I_ tried to help you!”

 

“Yes you did.  Thanks.  You’re still going to be helping me.  Just in a different way.”  He gave that short, harsh laugh.  “That’s what I remembered most about you, you know—how helpful you were.  Back at the academy.  You could always be counted on to go the extra distance, to help anyone who needed it, just that last little bit.  If someone was upset or in pain, you’d always do whatever you could to work it out.  You really cared.  I never realized how special that was until I left the academy and saw how things really were in the real world.  Maybe if the world had more people like you in it, it wouldn’t be as messed up as it is today.”  Gabrielle tried to pull away again, but Stallonus yanked her in close.  He laughed again, rough and painful.  “But there aren’t people like you.  There are only people like me.”

 

“How could you _do_ this?!” Gabrielle demanded of him.  They had come to a relatively open space among the supply wagons at the edge of the encampment; the sliver of moon peered briefly through the clouds above them, casting an eerie glow over everything.  Stallonus dragged her into the shadows at the side, watching out carefully for any signs of guards.  “You’re my friend!  I would never do this to a friend—“

 

“Yes.  You would.”  Stallonus’s voice in her ear was as cold and chill as the night around them; he spoke with absolute certainty.  “If you’d been through what I’d been through in the past year—if you’d seen what I’d seen—you’d do the _exact same thing_.  Believe me, Gabrielle.  Even you.  Believe me.”

 

Gabrielle raised her booted foot and drove it down on Stallonus’s foot behind her.  He was wearing sandals, and she felt his foot squash under her heel.  She ground her heel into his toes and heard him cry out; his hand opened around her wrist involuntarily and Gabrielle lunged away.  _“Help!”_ she cried.  _“Help!”_

 

The next instant, she felt him grab her again, pulling her back against him.  “Ah, Gabrielle, why did you do that?” he demanded.  She couldn’t see his face, but his voice was ragged with strain.  “Why did you have to do that?  Why? I told you what would happen!”

 

The edge of her belt knife gleamed in the low light from the moon.  Gabrielle gripped his wrist with hers and struggled to push him away.  Her arm was shaking with strain.  Hadn’t anyone heard her?  She needed all her strength to hold him back; she couldn’t spare any to scream again.  She tried to stomp on his foot again and missed.  The effort cost her; the dagger advanced toward her throat—

 

—when a slender, compact bundle of fury launched out of the darkness to smash into the two of them together.

 

Stallonus lurched under the impact and let go of Gabrielle; Gabrielle was thrown sprawling to the ground.  Quickly she scrambled a distance away on her hands and knees and turned to look back behind her.  The clouds had opened up and in the dim light from the moon Gabrielle could clearly see the struggling pair—Stallonus and his assailant.

 

 _“Tara!”_ Gabrielle shouted.

 _“Run, Gabrielle!”_ Tara cried.  Stallonus had dropped the knife under the assault, and Tara kicked it away.  Stallonus lunged at her, and Tara leapt aside, her braids flying; she gave him a shove as he passed her, and he reeled and almost fell.  There was no trace of the boy she had known on his features now; there was nothing but the ruthless face of a killer.  Gabrielle was stunned by the change.  The change in Tara was just as dramatic.  The warmhearted girl Gabrielle had met in the healer’s tent was nowhere to be seen; her black eyes glittered in the moonlight, blazing with fury, and her face was set in grim lines.  Stallonus came at her again, and Tara leapt at him too; the two of them struggled for a moment, their forms barely distinguishable in the harsh silver light, and then Stallonus gave a sharp cry and threw Tara from him.  Tara fell to the ground but kicked out at him as she fell; her foot caught his right knee and Stallonus cried out again and staggered.  Tara was on her feet in a trice.  _“Run!”_ she shouted again at Gabrielle.

 

But Gabrielle could not run.  Though Tara blazed with ferocity, Gabrielle did not think she could long outlast Stallonus; she had gotten lucky a couple times, but she didn’t look like a seasoned fighter, whereas Stallonus had fought with Zagreas’s men at least.   She was also completely unarmed.  Even as she watched, Stallonus seemed to collect himself and began to advance on Tara with a cold deadliness in his face.  Tara was not backing down; she faced him, her eyes blazing, but Gabrielle had no idea what she would do. Without stopping to think, Gabrielle found herself darting forward; acting purely by instinct, she leapt at Stallonus from behind and got an arm around his throat.




 

She heard him snarl in rage at her assault; hands gripped her shoulders and the world revolved around her as she went over his head to fall in the dirt again.  Hardly had she hit the ground when Tara struck him again, throwing herself at him and striking him with her fists.  Stallonus caught her arm and the two of them grappled in the moonlight; Tara’s face was twisted in an expression of desperate fury, but she was being forced backwards as he bore down on her.

 

As she rolled to one side, Gabrielle’s hand closed around something in the dirt—an iron tent stake, she saw.  Not a prybar, but close enough.  She heard Tara let out a yelp of pain, and that goaded her into action; Gabrielle rolled to her feet, locked both hands around the stake, and just as she had with Licinus a lifetime ago, she swung it with all her strength at the back of Stallonus’s head.

 

There was a sharp crack, and the stake jarred in her hands as she connected; Stallonus gave a grunt, and then went limp, sliding to the ground.   Gabrielle sagged in relief, but kept a hold on the stake and backed up a step, in case Stallonus should get up again.  She turned to Tara. “Tara,” she said, her voice shaky, “are you all—“




 

Then her words cut off.  Tara wasn’t listening to her.  Tara had gone down to the ground and come up with Gabrielle’s belt knife.  As Gabrielle stood helplessly, frozen to the spot by shock, Tara bent over Stallonus’s prone form.  Her face was drawn in a look of savage concentration.  The moonlight glittered in her cold, black eyes, and her lips were drawn back from her teeth in an almost feral grimace.  “Tara, _no!_ ” Gabrielle managed to get out, but Tara paid her no heed.  She stooped over the body of Gabrielle’s fallen friend, and with the knowledge of a trained healer, expertly slid Gabrielle’s knife in between Stallonus’s ribs.  As Gabrielle watched in a wave of cold horror, Tara drew the knife out of Stallonus’s lifeless form and wiped it on his shirt.  She straightened up, drew a breath, and turned shakily to Gabrielle.

 

“There,” she said with a wavering smile.  “Now he won’t ever get the chance to hurt more people.”

 

Gabrielle was speechless.

 

“I followed you.  I—I saw you leave the command tent….Are you all right?” Tara asked her unsteadily.

 

“You _killed_ him….”

 

Gabrielle might have said more, but the sound of raised, shouting voices and running footsteps came to their ears.  She and Tara turned at the same time in the direction of the commotion, instinctively stepping together in front of Stallonus; Tara moved forward a little, as if to shield Gabrielle.  Men and women came threading their way through the supply wagons to form a loose ring around the open space; a few carried torches, but the dim sparks were not enough to supplant the cold and silvery radiance of the sliver of moon.  More shouts, and then the individuals at one end of the ring pushed apart.

 

Gabrielle sensed her before she saw her.  The Crusader stepped into the center of the ring, and strode with firm steps to face her and Tara; her eyes flickered over them, and Gabrielle knew that she had taken in everything, the two of them standing together, the tent spike in her hand and the knife in Tara’s, and even the prone form of Stallonus lying behind them.  She was marble white in the moonlight, chill and compelling; all eyes immediately focused on her.  “It appears I got back just in time,” she said.  “Gabrielle, Tara.  Are either of you hurt?”

 

“No, we’re okay,” Tara assured her; Gabrielle’s throat had closed up in the face of this intimidating woman and she could not speak.

 

The Crusader nodded once.  She looked over them again, and Gabrielle quailed before that overwhelming presence; for the first time she was seeing a look on Najara’s face other than distant kindness.  There was a terrifying lack of expression on the face of She of the _Djinn_ , and when she spoke, her voice was frighteningly cold and clipped.  It was worse because Gabrielle could not tell at whom her anger was directed.  She felt herself involuntarily shrink back from the fearsome aura of the Crusader.  “What happened here?” Najara asked.

 

Tara stepped forward immediately, rallying to Gabrielle’s defense.  “It was this man here!  He escaped from his chains and grabbed Gabrielle!” she insisted hotly.  “He was going to carry her off as a hostage and then kill her!  He—“

 

She of the _Djinn_ closed her eyes for a moment.  She seemed for a moment to be listening to something Gabrielle could not hear.  “That’s not what happened,” she said coldly.  Tara fell silent, though she was still bubbling like a small kettle beside Gabrielle.  Najara turned, and those frighteningly pale eyes fell on Gabrielle.  Gabrielle couldn’t repress a shiver under the weight of that regard.  Her knees threatened to buckle before Najara’s power, and she locked them.  “Does someone want to tell me what happened here?” Najara asked, staring pointedly at Gabrielle.

 

Gabrielle drew a breath.  Speaking up then wasn’t the hardest thing she had ever done—and was far from the hardest thing she would ever do—but at that moment, it seemed that way.  She didn’t know what Najara would do, but she also knew that she could not lie to She of the _Djinn._   “Tara’s—Tara’s not telling the truth,” she said, swallowing.  Her knees were shaking.  “It was me.  This is the friend I was telling you about earlier.  I—I set him free, and then he grabbed me.  The rest of what she said was true.”

 

“Gabrielle didn’t kill him,” Tara put in.  “I did.”  Gabrielle threw her a glance, and felt a little better; Tara looked a little nervous, but firm and resolute.

 

Najara’s stern face softened infinitesimally— _if a marble outcropping could be said to soften,_ Gabrielle thought to herself.  Her palms were sweating, and she wiped them on her red skirt.  No softening was in the Chosen of the _Djinn’s_ voice when she spoke.  “I see.”  She looked them both over.  “Tara, your desire to shield your friend is praiseworthy.”

 

“Thank you, Najara,” Tara said humbly.

 

“Nevertheless, that does not change the fact that I am _very_ disappointed in you both.”

 

Gabrielle swallowed again, feeling herself cringe.  Tara hung her head. 

 

“Tara,” Najara said, addressing herself to the young healer first.  “I am very disappointed that you killed this man.  His three days were not yet up.  There was still a chance he might have come to the Light.  You took his life _needlessly,_ and in doing so deprived him of the chance to choose a better path.  The fact that you did so in defense of your friend does not excuse the action.”

“Yes, Najara,” Tara said submissively.

 

“You’re dismissed.  Go to the healers’ tent and have yourself examined for injuries.  Remain there the rest of the night.  Tomorrow we’ll discuss your actions and the appropriate consequences for them.”

 

“Yes, Najara,” Tara said again, and sketched a curtsey.  She glanced at Gabrielle, offered her a reassuring smile, and then darted off.  Gabrielle watched her go as if she were losing a lifeline, then clasped her hands together as she turned back to face the Crusader all alone.

 

“Gabrielle,” Najara said sternly, “I am disappointed in you too.”  She paused.  Gabrielle’s mouth was dry.  She rubbed her hands on her skirt again; she couldn’t think of anything to say.

 

“I extended to you my trust.  I gave you the run of the encampment.  I explained my rules about the prisoners to you, and the reasoning behind them.  You’ve broken that trust.”

 

She paused again.  “I’m sorry,” Gabrielle said.  Her voice was only a whisper.

 

“What should I do, Gabrielle?” Najara asked her.  Her face was as stern and emotionless as granite in the silvery radiance from the moon.  To Gabrielle, Najara seemed as tall and straight as a marble column or pillar; she looked down on Gabrielle as if from a lofty height.  “What should I do with you?” 

 

“I don’t know,” Gabrielle whispered again.  The effects of the fight were creeping up on her.  The rush of danger had faded, and that creeping lethargy was starting to spread through her body.  Her knees felt weak.

 

“If I let you go, will you do this again?  Will you try to free other prisoners?”

 

“No,” she said miserably.

 

“How can I believe that?  Can you show me some way that I can trust you again?” Najara asked.  Her voice was softer now; maybe, Gabrielle thought, Najara could see how upset she was.

 

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Gabrielle said miserably.  “Believe me, I won’t try to free any more prisoners again,” she added bitterly.

 

Najara was looking at her closely.  “Do you give your word?” she asked gently.

 

“I—I promise.”  Tears were starting to sting Gabrielle’s eyes.  She stared down at the dirt by Najara’s feet, as her vision blurred.  After a moment, she felt a warm, comforting hand on her shoulder.

 

“Very well.  Let’s just consider this a lesson learned, then, and put it behind us.”  She squeezed Gabrielle’s shoulder reassuringly.  “Go join Tara in the healers’ tent.  You look like you are about to fall over where you are.  Have the healers check you out as well.”

 

Gabrielle couldn’t speak.  She nodded instead.   Najara turned from her and began to give orders to the surrounding circle of people, but Gabrielle couldn’t understand them.  She moved off unsteadily, beyond the small ring of open ground and torchlight.  As soon as she was a good distance away, she threw the tent stake from her as hard as she could.  She sank to the ground, trembling.  Her blood was roaring in her ears. She leaned forward and put her head between her knees, breathing hard and shaking; she stayed like that for a long time.




 

Eventually, she was able to sit up again.  Rising to her feet unsteadily, she drew a deep breath, then another one.  The trembling was starting to subside, and the feeling of roiling nausea was no longer as bad as it had been.   Gabrielle took hold of herself, swallowing and straightening her shoulders.  She stood there, breathing hard, until she had restored some semblance of calm to herself. Feeling somewhat better, she continued on to the healers’ tent.




 

[*]

 

“You know, Gabrielle, you’re welcome to stay with us if you would like,” Najara said courteously.

 

“Thanks, I appreciate the offer,” Gabrielle said.  Argo whickered, and Gabrielle tugged on the reins; the mare subsided.  “But I really need to be getting home to Potedaia.  My mother and father must be worried about me.”

 

“I understand,” Najara said, nodding.  She looked over the slanting field in the early morning sunshine.  Her sword was reddish in the light from the sunrise.  By the end of the day, Gabrielle knew, it would be red with the blood of those who had not converted to the Light.

 

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like an escort back to your village?” Jett asked now.  “We could easily provide you one, if you wish.”

 

“No, I think we’ll be all right.”  She turned and glanced up at Caesar, where he sat on Argo’s back; he saw her looking at him and averted his eyes.  He still had the gladius they had taken off Licinus, Gabrielle observed.  She herself had appropriated the hatchet that she had used in the tavern, and had it stuck through her belt at her back again.

 

She put one foot in Argo’s stirrup and swung up before Caesar. The air was hot and humid in the misty morning sunshine, and moisture sparkled on the grass like jewels.  As she settled herself in the saddle, she heard a call, and turned; Tara came running up to her over the grass, her dark eyes wide.

 

“Are you leaving?” she asked as she reached Argo, breathless.  “I wish you could stay with us.  I wish you could,” she said, heartfelt.  “It was fun working with you.  I’ll miss you.”

 

“I’ll miss you too,” Gabrielle said, and realized she meant it; but the realization was tinged with unease.  She glanced at the Crusader, who was watching Tara with an indulgent smile.  An errant memory surfaced:  Tara’s face, savage and intent in the moonlight.  A chill ran over her, and she took a better grip on Argo’s reins.

 

“I’m glad you got to see me dance,” Tara bubbled.  “I liked dancing with you—I wish I could have seen you perform.  I bet you’re really good—Oh, I almost forgot!” Tara said with a sudden realization.  “I meant to give this back to you last night….Here!” 

 

Gabrielle stared down at Tara’s outstretched hand.  In it was her belt knife, shining and clean in the morning sun.  She looked from it to Tara’s wide, eager black eyes.  After a long moment, she slowly stretched her hand out and took it from her friend.  It was cool and quiescent in her grip.

 

“Thanks,” she said.  The word tasted strange on her tongue.  Gabrielle slid the knife into its sheath at her waist.

 

“Go safely, Gabrielle,” Tara told her, smiling warmly.  “And if you get bored or whatever back in your home village, come back to us! We’ll be glad to have you!”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”  Gabrielle was oddly touched, in spite of herself.  Tara stood back, and Gabrielle took Argo’s reins in her grip.  She was about to touch her heels to Argo’s sides when Najara stepped forward.

 

“Caesar,” the Crusader said, looking at him; Gabrielle felt Caesar stiffen at her back, and his hands tightened spasmodically around her waist.  “The _djinn_ have a message they wish me to tell you.  I don’t understand it, but maybe you will.”

 

Caesar was silent for a moment behind her; Najara stood waiting, her pale eyes slightly narrowed against the morning sun.  Finally he said warily, “What?”

 

“The _djinn_ have told me to tell you this,” Najara said.  “They say:  Surrendering yourself would have changed nothing.  By then, it was already too late.”  She paused, frowning at him.  “Do you understand this?”

 

Gabrielle turned to look over her shoulder at her companion, but she could not read his expression.  He stared at Najara for a long moment, then swallowed; he gave no answer.  Najara waited for a moment, then stepped back, having come to the conclusion that no answer would be forthcoming.

 

It was Jett who stepped forward last of all.  He took Argo’s reins, and gazed up at her; looking down into his eyes, Gabrielle was startled to see a profound sympathy there.  “Walk in the Light, Gabrielle,” he told her softly.  “Walk in the Light.”

 

“Walk in the Light,” Najara repeated, and Tara echoed behind her, “Walk in the Light.”

 

“You too,” Gabrielle replied with feeling.  She took Argo’s reins in her hands and touched her heels to the horse’s sides; she guided the golden mare in the early morning sunshine down the tree-lined road away from the Crusader’s encampment.

 

 _Finis._


End file.
